Brooklyn Nets
The Brooklyn Nets are a 1967 ABA charter franchise. They won two ABA championships (1974 and 1976, both with Julius Erving) before joining the NBA in the 1976 merger. They have reached the NBA Finals twice (2002 and 2003, both with Jason Kidd) and lost both. They have never won an NBA championship. The franchise has had four home cities: Teaneck, New Jersey (1967–68); Long Island (1968–77, across three arenas); New Jersey at the Meadowlands (1977–2010) and Prudential Center (2010–12); and Brooklyn (2012–present). The 2019–2023 Kevin Durant-Kyrie Irving-James Harden “Big Three” experiment, despite a historic talent collection, produced zero Finals appearances. Current ownership is Joe Tsai, who purchased the franchise from Mikhail Prokhorov in 2019 for $2.35 billion.
The ABA years (1967–1976)
The franchise was founded in 1967 as the New Jersey Americans, playing their first ABA season at the Teaneck Armory. They relocated to Long Island in 1968, rebranded as the New York Nets, and played at the Long Island Arena (1968–69), the Island Garden (1969–72), and the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum (1972–77). The Nets name was chosen, per owner Arthur Brown, because it rhymed with the Mets and the Jets of New York.
The Nets reached the ABA Finals in 1972, losing to the Indiana Pacers. They won the 1974 ABA championship under Julius Erving, head coach Kevin Loughery, and a supporting cast of Larry Kenon, Billy Paultz, and John Williamson. Erving was 1974 ABA MVP. The 1976 ABA championship, won over the Denver Nuggets, was Erving’s third MVP and the final ABA title.
The 1976 merger and the Erving sale
The 1976 ABA-NBA merger absorbed the Nets, Denver Nuggets, Indiana Pacers, and San Antonio Spurs. The New York Knicks demanded a $4.8 million territorial-rights fee from the Nets for joining the New York metropolitan market. The Nets’ ownership, unable to pay the fee and the ABA merger-absorption costs simultaneously, sold Julius Erving’s contract to the Philadelphia 76ers for $3 million in October 1976. Full Erving story here.
The Erving sale is the most-criticized business decision in franchise history. The Nets went 22–60 in their first NBA season without him. They did not reach the NBA Finals for the next twenty-five years.
The New Jersey decades (1977–2012)
The Nets played at the Meadowlands Arena (later Continental Airlines Arena, then Izod Center) from 1981 to 2010 and at Prudential Center in Newark from 2010 to 2012. They made the NBA playoffs in sixteen of those thirty-six seasons. Buck Williams, Bernard King, Otis Birdsong, Darryl Dawkins, and Derrick Coleman led various mid-eras without deep playoff runs.
The most consequential New Jersey-era story is Drazen Petrovic. Petrovic was acquired from Portland in 1991 and became the team’s leading scorer by 1992–93. He was killed in a car accident on the German autobahn on June 7, 1993, at age twenty-eight. His number 3 was retired the following season. Petrovic’s death is the single most-mourned moment in franchise history.
The Jason Kidd Finals era (2001–2003)
Jason Kidd was acquired from Phoenix in July 2001 for Stephon Marbury. The 2001–02 Nets, coached by Byron Scott, went 52–30 and reached the NBA Finals, losing to the Lakers 4–0. Kidd averaged 14.8 points, 8.0 rebounds, 7.0 assists across the series. The 2002–03 Nets reached the Finals again, losing to the Spurs 4–2. Tim Duncan’s Game 6 (21 points, 20 rebounds, 10 assists, 8 blocks) is the game most-cited as the clinching performance of Duncan’s Spurs-first-era ring. Duncan’s full story here.
The Kidd-era Nets reached three consecutive conference finals (2002, 2003, 2004). Kidd was traded to Dallas in February 2008 for Devin Harris, Jerry Stackhouse, and two first-round picks. The 2009 through 2011 Nets were lottery teams.
The 2010 Prokhorov purchase and the 2012 Brooklyn relocation
Mikhail Prokhorov, a Russian mining and metals billionaire, purchased the New Jersey Nets from Bruce Ratner on May 11, 2010 for $200 million. Prokhorov was the first non-North American majority owner in NBA history. He funded the completion of Barclays Center in downtown Brooklyn, which opened on September 21, 2012 with a Jay-Z concert series. The Nets played their first Brooklyn home game on November 3, 2012.
The Brooklyn relocation was driven by Ratner’s Atlantic Yards development project, which had been in planning since 2003. The move was controversial in New York basketball circles; it placed a second NBA franchise within five miles of Madison Square Garden and Knicks territory for the first time in modern NBA history.
The 2013 Celtics trade, and the Pierce-Garnett year
On June 27, 2013, the Nets traded Kris Humphries, Gerald Wallace, MarShon Brooks, Kris Joseph, Keith Bogans, and three first-round picks plus a pick swap to the Boston Celtics for Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Jason Terry, and D. J. White. Paul Pierce story here; Kevin Garnett story here.
The trade was, in retrospect, one of the most lopsided in NBA history. Boston used the pick capital to select Jaylen Brown (2016), Jayson Tatum (2017, via a pick-swap chain), and Collin Sexton (though Sexton was traded). The 2013–14 Nets, with Pierce, Garnett, and Deron Williams, reached the second round of the playoffs and lost to Miami. Pierce left as a free agent in 2014. Garnett was traded back to Minnesota in February 2015. The Nets entered a rebuild that produced lottery seasons through 2018.
The Kenny Atkinson rebuild and the 2019 Tsai purchase
Kenny Atkinson was hired as head coach in 2016. He coached the Nets to the 2019 playoffs, the franchise’s first postseason since 2015. The rebuild produced the draft picks (D’Angelo Russell, Caris LeVert, Jarrett Allen) and cap space that financed the 2019 free agency.
Joe Tsai, the co-founder and executive vice chairman of Alibaba, purchased 49 percent of the Brooklyn Nets from Prokhorov in April 2018 for $1.0 billion. He exercised his option to buy the remaining 51 percent on August 15, 2019 for $1.35 billion, bringing the total purchase to $2.35 billion. Tsai was born in Taiwan, educated in Canada and the United States, and is a citizen of Canada.
The 2019 free-agency class and the Big Three
In July 2019 the Nets signed Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving as free agents. Full Durant Brooklyn story here. Durant was rehabilitating a torn Achilles from the 2019 Finals and missed the entire 2019–20 season.
On January 14, 2021, the Nets acquired James Harden from the Houston Rockets for a four-team package that included Jarrett Allen, Caris LeVert, Rodions Kurucs, and four first-round picks. Full Harden Brooklyn story here. The Big Three of Durant, Irving, and Harden played exactly 16 regular-season games together as a full starting unit.
The 2021 playoffs: Brooklyn lost to Milwaukee 4–3 in the second round. Kevin Durant’s potential game-winning jumper at the end of Game 7 would have been a three if his foot had been an inch further back; it was ruled a two, sending the game to overtime, and Milwaukee won in overtime. The 2021–22 Nets missed the playoffs. Harden was traded to Philadelphia in February 2022 for Ben Simmons, Seth Curry, Andre Drummond, and two first-round picks.
The Big Three era ended in early 2023. Durant was traded to Phoenix on February 9, 2023 for Mikal Bridges, Cameron Johnson, Jae Crowder, four first-round picks, and a pick swap. Irving was traded to Dallas on February 6, 2023. Three months of trades dismantled the roster.
2023–present
The post-Big-Three Nets, under general manager Sean Marks, have cycled through rebuilds. The 2023–24 Nets went 32–50. The 2024–25 Nets went 26–56 and fired head coach Jordi Fernández late in the season. The current roster features Cam Thomas, Nic Claxton, and the 2024 draft class. The 2025–26 Nets are a lottery team.
Ownership
Joe Tsai’s 2025 Forbes net worth was approximately $10.6 billion. Minority owners include Oak View Group executives. The Nets’ 2025 Forbes valuation was approximately $4.05 billion. Tsai also owns the WNBA’s New York Liberty and the San Diego FC of Major League Soccer.
Retired numbers
Six jersey numbers have been retired:
- Julius Erving (32)
- Bill Melchionni (25)
- John Williamson (23)
- Buck Williams (52)
- Drazen Petrovic (3)
- Jason Kidd (5)
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Sources
- Basketball-Reference, Brooklyn Nets franchise page
- The New York Times, Brooklyn Nets coverage
- 1976 ABA-NBA merger records and Knicks territorial-rights fee ($4.8 million)
- 2002 and 2003 NBA Finals box scores (Basketball-Reference)
- 2013 Boston-Brooklyn trade records (Pierce-Garnett)
- 2019 Joe Tsai purchase records ($2.35 billion)
- 2021 and 2022 Harden trade records (Rockets-Nets and Nets-76ers)
- February 2023 Durant trade records (Nets-Suns)
- Forbes NBA Team Valuations, 2025
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