Can the Brooklyn Nets Convert a Generation of Newly Minted Knicks Fans?

At the Brooklyn Nets’ 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, and sometimes even franchise leaders.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’Brien in June, leaving Brooklyn with some soul searching to do. “It doesn't make us feel very good,” Nets owner Joe Tsai told NetsDaily over the summer. “It irates our fan base and it is embarrassing.” As The Ringer’s Zach Lowe pointed out on his recently launched Substack, the Knicks’ title cost the Nets “an entire generation of fans.”I, for one, have never understood why commentators are so obsessed with the size of Brooklyn’s fanbase. I am, obviously, a hugely biased homer, but you don’t hear the same concerns when it comes to other little-brother teams like the Clippers or teams, like Wizards, whose games are sparsely attended. Even as they’ve 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. Still, I have to hear talking heads argue that the team should move back to New Jersey? I might be salty, but that’s stupid.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’s star forward Michael Porter Jr. recently said, “When we play Knicks, Celtics, Philly, Lakers, it's mostly their fans. It's crazy.” And he’s not wrong: it's a weird time to be a fan of the Brooklyn Nets—the team’s 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’s training facility in Sunset Park to see how the Nets are tackling this problem with pillars of the present and future.“I don't give a shit,” says Julius Randle, tucked into a glass room in the corner of the Nets’ famously photogenic training facility, when I ask him about the invasion of opposing fans at Barclays. “I've been on teams that weren't good and didn’t have the excitement around them. Then you start winning and the whole arena is there to see your team and cheer. So I think that's just part of being a fan. For us as a team, we got to give them something to root for.”Randle, who played an integral role in the Knicks rebuild before being shipped off to the Minnesota Timberwolves in 2024, has seen New York City basketball fandom from both sides of the river. “It doesn't really matter what team I play for. I was at my son's basketball game yesterday and it was like, Man, I'm a Nets fan. You’re going to kill it this year. Then I get on the other side and it's, Thank you for everything you've done for the Knicks."Randle, now on his fifth team in 13 seasons, also downplayed the idea that the Nets-Knicks intercity rivalry mattered all that much to players. “From the locker room, basketball is basketball,” he insists. “It's not like college or high school where we play our rival on Friday or whatever. You play 82 games a year. You feel the energy during the game, but I definitely think it's a bigger deal from a fan perspective than it is from a player's perspective.”I can’t even finish my next question before he cuts me off. Do you see part of your role as growing this next generation of fans or are you just here to—“No, hell no,” Randle says. “I definitely want to be a part of establishing a culture and giving the city of Brooklyn something to be proud of. I'm not here just to come out and get my numbers or whatever it is. I'm here to win a championship. I'm here to help these young guys excel and speed up their growth process.”One of those young guys is the anointed prince of the franchise, Mikel Brown Jr., the Orlando-born point guard the Nets took sixth overall in this year’s draft and who fans are already calling “the best prospect in franchise history” (I agree.) Another prominent member of Nets Twitter, moved by preseason action, described him as a mix of CJ McCollum and All-NBA regulars Tyrese Haliburton and Kyrie Irving. (I love that tweet, and I love this fanbase.)With the Nets, Brown came into a peculiar situation. Not only does the future of the franchise’s success hinge on whether he can reach his star potential—so does the team’s ability to cultivate a new generation of fans. It’s a challenge Brown recognizes and embraces. Many fans, myself included, took note of a phrase he kept repeating on draft night: “I’m home.” It felt like a full-throated endorsement of the franchise and its mission. “Most of the [Nets] fans are there in the arena for a draft night,” Brown says when I ask him what he meant. “So to hear the crowd pop and just to see the energy, it brought me a whole bunch of joy.”Brown is 20 years old, and looks even younger, but he understands just how much is riding on his rookie season. “I embrace it,” he says. “At the end of the day, we're just kind of focusing on what we can control and then let everything else play on. Whatever happens after that and whoever comes along with us, enjoy the ride because we're going to go to war.”Everyone I talked to believes Brown has the goods to deliver on both his promises and his potential. Randle, too, told me he’s been texting his friends back home to tell them how gifted Brown is. “I've been thoroughly, thoroughly impressed with not just his talent level, but his maturity and his IQ at such a young age is really, really impressive.” Typically, Randle continues, young players are single-mindedly focused on scoring. But Brown understands that there’s more than one way to contribute. “He just knows how to make the right play every single time. He just knows how to play good basketball.”Brown is the type of prospect us Nets fans have been waiting to call our own. I loved rooting for every iteration of this team, but what the franchise’s best players—Jason Kidd, Deron Williams, Joe Johnson, Kyrie Irving, and Kevin Durant—have in common is that none of them were drafted by the Nets. Developing a homegrown star is a different task altogether, and the Nets have solid reason to believe they've found one.On Wednesday night against the Boston Celtics, we caught a glimpse of what Brown can do . The 20 year-old was “not human,” as Nets longtime commentator Ian Eagle likes to say, in the fourth quarter. After pouring in several clutch baskets, he sent the game to overtime with a falling-to-the-side three with just 0.2 seconds left. Brooklyn lost the game, but if Brown’s development keeps trending in this direction, maybe we can win the war.My Nets fandom is the result of perfect timing. I mostly grew up in California but spent my formative sports-team-choosing years in New Jersey when my family and I moved across the country for my dad’s job. After moving back to the Bay Area halfway through elementary school, I clung even more tightly to the Nets to stay connected with the friends and the place I left behind: the Snoopy fishing rod I used at the local lake, the fireflies in my New Jersey-sized backyard, the cul-de-sac that seemed to have a friend in every neighboring house.During the Nets home opener, with the team wearing their excellent ABA-inspired red-and-blue jerseys, the game seemed all but decided as the Charlotte Hornets started to pull away at the end of the fourth. But with just over a minute left, the crowd started to pop as Randle bullied his way into an and-one layup and starting center Day'Ron Sharpe blocked a shot at the other end.I thought back to the simple philosophy both Randle and Brown echoed: just win, and people will show up. The Nets eventually lost that game against Charlotte, and a few other heartbreakers since (against very tough competition, for what it’s worth). It’s unclear whether the Nets will ever convert a generation of fans spellbound by the Knicks, or even win the Finals. But I know I’ll be there.