The New Jersey Nets are a professional basketball team in the National Basketball Association that plays in the Eastern Conference's Atlantic Division. They are currently based in East Rutherford, New Jersey, and play their home games at the Izod Center. The team is planning to relocate to the borough of Brooklyn in New York City, but legal issues have complicated the move.
Franchise history
1967 to 1976 – The ABA Years
The franchise was established in 1967 as part of the American Basketball Association, with trucking magnate Arthur Brown as the owner. Brown had operated several AAU teams in and around New York City, and was viewed as an ideal pick to run the league's New York franchise. The team was originally known as the New York Americans , and Brown intended for it to play at the 69th Regiment Armory on Manhattan's east side, but pressure from the New York Knicks forced the Armory to back out three months before opening day.
Brown found it difficult to find a suitable venue in New York City. Some were booked solid, and others had owners who didn't want to anger the Knicks by opening their doors to a rival team. Scrambling for a venue, the team settled on the Armory in Teaneck, New Jersey, and changed its squad name to the New Jersey Americans , though its franchise name remained the New York Americans.
The Americans did fairly well in their first season, tying the Kentucky Colonels for the last playoff spot in the Eastern Division. However, the Armory was booked, forcing the Americans to scramble for a last-minute replacement.
They found one in the Long Island Arena in Commack, New York. However, when the Americans and Colonels arrived, they found a bizarre scene. The floor had several missing boards and bolts, and was unstable in several areas (one player claimed to have seen one side of the floor come up when he stepped on another). There was no padding on the backboards or basket supports, and one basket appeared to be higher than the other. There was also a large amount of condensation from a hockey game the previous night. After the Colonels refused to play, league commissioner George Mikan forfeited the game to the Colonels.
For the second year, the team opted to stay on Long Island, where it changed its name to the New York Nets. The team was renamed to "Nets" to rhyme with the names of two other professional sports teams that played in the New York metropolitan area at the time: Major League Baseball's New York Mets and the American Football League's New York Jets. "Nets" was also a nickname that related to basketball in general, since it is part of the hoop.
The team finished last in its first New York season and drew a paltry 1,108 a game – about half of what it had drawn a year earlier. They posted a hideous 17–61 record, and shuffled 23 different players on and off the roster. Brown sold the team to clothing manufacturer Roy Boe after that season. Boe got busy right away during the 1969 off season. After failing in their pursuit for UCLA star Lew Alcindor, who was drafted and then signed by the National Basketball Association's Milwaukee Bucks, the team acquired Rick Barry from the Virginia Squires and the Island Garden in West Hempstead became their new home. The Nets finished in third place and in the playoffs in 1969–70, and attendance went up threefold to 3,504. After two years at the Island Garden, the team moved to the new Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale for the 1971–72 season.
In 1972, two years after the acquisition of Barry, the Nets advanced to the ABA finals. However, they could not overcome the Indiana Pacers and lost the series four games to two. Barry left after that postseason, sending the Nets into rebuilding mode. The 1972–73 season was one of disappointment, as the Nets only won 30 games.
The 1973–74 season saw the Nets finally put all the pieces together. The key event of the season though would come in the 1973 offseason, however, as the Nets acquired Julius Erving from the Virginia Squires. With Erving, who was affectionately known as "Dr. J", the Nets ended the season with a franchise record 55 victories. After Erving was voted the ABA's MVP, the Nets advanced in the playoffs and won their first title, defeating the Utah Stars in the 1974 ABA Finals.
The success continued into the 1974–75 season as they topped the previous season's win record by winning 58 games—a record that still stands to this day. The Nets, though, were eliminated four games to one, by the Spirits of St. Louis in the first round of the 1975 ABA playoffs.
The Nets continued their winning ways in the 1975–76 season—the final season for the ABA—with Erving leading them to a successful 55-win season; he also was named MVP again that year. After a grueling series with the Denver Nuggets, the Nets won the last ABA championship series in league history in six games, giving the Nets their second championship in three years.
1976 to 1980 – Move to the NBA and back to New Jersey
The summer of 1976 saw the ABA-NBA merger finally take place. As part of the merger agreement, four teams from the ABA—the Nets, Nuggets, Pacers and San Antonio Spurs—joined the NBA. The Nets and Nuggets had actually applied to join the NBA in 1975, but were turned away. Prior to their first NBA season, the Nets traded two draft picks to the Kansas City Kings for guard Nate Archibald. The Nets appeared to be poised to pick up where they left off in the ABA.
However, they got a rude surprise when the NBA forced them to pay $4.8 million to the Knicks for "invading" the Knicks' NBA territory. Coming on the heels of the $3.2 million that the team had to pay for joining the NBA, this left Boe short of cash, and he was forced to renege on a promised pay raise for Erving. Erving refused to play for the Nets under these conditions, leaving Boe no choice but to sell Erving to the Philadelphia 76ers for $3 million. Without Erving, the Nets wrote off the season as a lost cause. However, they lost all semblance of respectability when Archibald broke his foot in January. The team finished at 22–60, the worst record in the league. The team did set one record of sorts; in February 1977, they became the first NBA team ever to have an all-left-handed starting lineup, with Tim Bassett, Al Skinner, Bubbles Hawkins, Dave Wohl, and Kim Hughes.
Prior to the 1977–78 season, Boe moved the franchise back to New Jersey, renaming the team the New Jersey Nets. While the team awaited the completion of a new arena at the Meadowlands Sports Complex, they played four seasons at the Rutgers Athletic Center (later renamed the Louis Brown Athletic Center) on the Kilmer Campus (now "Livingston" Campus) of Rutgers University in Piscataway, NJ. In 1978, Boe sold the team to a group of seven local businessmen (led by Joe Taub and Alan N. Cohen) who became known as the "Secaucus Seven". The first four years in New Jersey were disappointing, as the Nets suffered through four consecutive losing seasons.
1980s
A promising decade (1980–1985)
The team moved into the Brendan Byrne Arena (known as the Continental Airlines Arena in 1996, and renamed the Izod Center in October 2007) in 1981 and experienced modest success with four consecutive winning seasons. In 1982–83, while coached by Larry Brown, the Nets were having their best season since joining the NBA. However, Brown accepted the head coaching job at the University of Kansas during the last month of the season and was suspended for the rest of the season. The Nets would never recover from the coaching change and would lose in the first round of the playoffs to their Hudson River rival New York Knicks.
In the 1983–84 season, the Nets fielded what was believed to be their best team since joining the league. Led by Darryl Dawkins, Buck Williams, Otis Birdsong, and Micheal Ray Richardson, the team won their first NBA playoff series, defeating the defending champion 76ers in the first round of the 1984 NBA Playoffs before falling to the Milwaukee Bucks in the Eastern Conference semifinals in six games.
Injuries plagued the team during the 1984–85 season, but the Nets still managed to win 42 games before being eliminated from the playoffs by the Detroit Pistons in three games. New Jersey would not have a winning record until another eight seasons (1992–93).
Injuries and other misfortunes (1986–1989)
Newly hired head coach Dave Wohl helped lead the Nets to a respectable record at the beginning of the 1985–86 season, posting a 23–14 start. New Jersey's promising start dissipated after All-Star Michael Ray Richardson was banned from the league over drug use and star center Darryl Dawkins became sidelined with an injury. Nonetheless, the Nets managed to earn the 7th seed in the 1986 NBA Playoffs before being swept by the Milwaukee Bucks in the first round. The Nets would not qualify for the playoffs for the next six seasons (1991–92).
New Jersey acquired Orlando Woolridge and drafted Pearl Washington in hopes of strengthening the faltering team, yet misfortunes were far from over in the Garden State. Dawkins missed most of the season after reinjuring his back, standout guard Otis Birdsong played in only seven games while nursing a shin stress fracture and Pearl Washington had a shoddy rookie year. Its formerly solid backcourt became plagued with injuries and contract disputes. The 1986–87 seaso
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