{"id":388802,"date":"2026-10-31T08:56:41","date_gmt":"2026-10-31T08:56:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/388802\/"},"modified":"2026-10-31T08:56:41","modified_gmt":"2026-10-31T08:56:41","slug":"can-the-brooklyn-nets-convert-a-generation-of-newly-minted-knicks-fans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/388802\/","title":{"rendered":"Can the Brooklyn Nets Convert a Generation of Newly Minted Knicks Fans?"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the Brooklyn Nets\u2019 home opener against the Charlotte Hornets last week, one longtime fan pointed out the strange dynamic inherent to New York City basketball fandom. He was jealous of places like Boston and Philadelphia, he said, because the entire city organizes itself around one team. Sports franchises, after all, are avatars of civic pride, and the very best organizations come to reflect the values of the cities they represent. (Think the Showtime Lakers or the Grit-and-Grind Memphis Grizzlies.) But in New York, home to both the Nets and the Knicks, fan bases are pitted against each other by fans, media<\/a>, and sometimes even franchise leaders<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For a long time, the Nets could take solace in their cross rivals’ decades-long stretch of ineptitude. That vanished when Jalen Brunson and company lifted the Larry O\u2019Brien in June, leaving Brooklyn with some soul searching to do. \u201cIt doesn’t make us feel very good,\u201d Nets owner Joe Tsai told NetsDaily over the summer. \u201cIt irates our fan base and it is embarrassing.\u201d As The Ringer\u2019s Zach Lowe pointed out on his recently launched Substack, the Knicks\u2019 title cost the Nets \u201can entire generation of fans<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

I, for one, have never understood why commentators are so obsessed with the size of Brooklyn\u2019s fanbase. I am, obviously, a hugely biased homer, but you don\u2019t hear the same concerns when it comes to other little-brother teams like the Clippers or teams, like Wizards, whose games are sparsely attended<\/a>. Even as they\u2019ve tanked these past couple of years, the Nets have maintained a 99% attendance rate and are the eighth most-valuable franchise in the entire league<\/a>. Still, I have to hear talking heads argue that the team should move back to New Jersey? I might be salty, but that\u2019s stupid.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, there is clearly angst about building up a coalition of Nets faithful. On his podcast Curious Mike, where I wish he would be less curious, the team\u2019s star forward Michael Porter Jr. recently said, \u201cWhen we play Knicks, Celtics, Philly, Lakers, it’s mostly their fans. It’s crazy.\u201d And he\u2019s not wrong: it’s a weird time to be a fan of the Brooklyn Nets\u2014the team\u2019s fallen twice in the lottery and is trying to kickstart a rebuild in the shadow of one of the most storied franchises in the NBA. So I made my way over to the team\u2019s training facility in Sunset Park to see how the Nets are tackling this problem with pillars of the present and future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At the Brooklyn Nets\u2019 home opener against the Charlotte Hornets last week, one longtime fan pointed out the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":388803,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[4567,98,100,355,99,21,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-388802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-basketball","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-nets","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-nba","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/388803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}