![\"I](\"https:\/\/platform.netsdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/113\/2026\/06\/Screenshot-2026-06-14-at-5.29.37PM.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0,0,100,100\")
<\/a><\/p>\nI love my friends\u2026.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll say it so you don\u2019t have to: It doesn\u2019t really matter that the New York Knicks are champions, not as it pertains to Brooklyn\u2019s on-court success. Of course, those future Knicks picks might not be so valuable\u2026<\/p>\n
\u2026but that\u2019d still be the case even if Victor Wembanyama made eye-contact with Stephon Castle before throwing that pass. You, Nets fan, are still allowed or even encouraged to be excited for a future with Egor D\u00ebmin and whoever the team drafts at No. 6 overall in ten days.<\/p>\n
Regarding the rest, there\u2019s little to be done. If there is anything, anything at all surprising about Fort Greene\/Downtown Brooklyn\/Park Slope drowning in blue-and-orange ecstasy\u2026<\/p>\n
\u2026it\u2019s that any of us lived long enough to see the Knicks win another title. As Ock Sportello<\/a> told me, this would be easier to accept if the franchise were an indomitable, Laker-esque force rather than a tortured soul with The Greatest City in the World and, therefore, the moral arc of history behind them. LeBron James told Cleveland that his crowning achievement was for them. He wasn\u2019t exactly lying, but we all know that 2016 as The LeBron Title. Kawhi Leonard put a whole nation in The North on his back in 2019; alas, that is The Kawhi Title.<\/p>\n But 2026 is The New York Title. Jalen Brunson cemented his place in NBA history, of course, but he also cemented his place as a contender for the most beloved athlete in NYC history, simply a different plane of existence. I will always remember his 45-point NBA Finals closeout game; many more will remember what felt like eight million New Yorkers partying on the streets until the sun came up, from the true die-hards to the property-destroying streamers to the Kips Bay transplants singing their \u201cEmpire State of Mind\u201d transplant anthem because it\u2019s something to do on a Saturday night and hey, New York is about all those things.<\/p>\n So does it matter that the Knicks are growing their fanbase faster than the Nets? Does it matter that this mode of achievement is inaccessible for your favorite team despite also playing in New York City?<\/p>\n \u201cNo\u201d is a very reasonable, healthy answer. We\u2019ll all rejoice when the Brooklyn Nets are one day competitive again, perhaps an evil thorn in New York\u2019s side just as they were in the mid 2000\u2019s. I was in the building for Nets-Bucks Game 5 in 2021; the crowd was packed, loud, and very pro-Nets, a low bar but cleared nonetheless. I enjoyed not just the talent on that team, but I loved the vibe. Their best players were hired guns, mercenaries who, under cover of darkness, joined forces in Brooklyn of all places to wreak havoc on the NBA. It fit.<\/p>\n Admittedly, cold villainy is a difficult vibe for a franchise to lean into \u2014 I\u2019m not writing this to ask the Nets for anything in particular, maybe other than more Josh Minott quotes<\/a>. But as Ock Sportello explains<\/a>: \u201cMy grievance, ultimately, is not with the Knicks for reminding me that I will never be a New Yorker, but for the Nets for attempting to convince me that that is something to be ashamed of.\u201d<\/p>\n As a New Yorker, my shame is slightly different, though still distinctly Nets-flavored. I root for the team that moved here and immediately shed any trace of their New Jersey past when I wouldn\u2019t tolerate that quality in a friend. It is the irrepressible feeling that Mikal Bridges was justified in committing the Nets\u2019 cardinal sin, openly pining for a trade across the river, which allowed him to better his life and career and become a local legend. He won.<\/p>\n When I woke up on June 25, 2024, I did not think I\u2019d be standing alone at the Belmont LIRR station at 2 A.M. on June 26, so I did not throw a hoodie in my backpack. Of course, I did not know the Nets were going to make a franchise-altering trade during the fourth quarter of the Commissioner\u2019s Cup Final between the New York Liberty and Minnesota Lynx, moved to UBS Arena from Barclays Center so as not to interfere with next day\u2019s NBA Draft.<\/p>\n But I couldn\u2019t tell if I really was cold, or if it was coffee jittters, or if the Six-Pick Mik trade(s) had given me goosebumps all by itself. In any case, I called anybody I figured would be awake, excitedly explaining that the Nets had saved themselves from mediocrity. That the next two years would be painful, but perhaps Cooper Flagg or Ace Bailey or AJ Dybantsa or Darryn Peterson could be in black-and-white.<\/p>\n As you all know, that didn\u2019t happen. Lottery luck was never guaranteed. Such is life. Brooklyn still owns future picks from that deal, and they do have flexibility; not every trade or signing or draft pick reaches its ideal outcome. But only the Nets could make one of the great trades in franchise history, setting themselves up to tank for a two-year period that produces the #8 pick, the #6 pick, and said trade being mocked by a rival team as they accept their Larry O\u2026<\/p>\n Only the Nets, I tell ya.<\/p>\n Alright. No more. For real. Let\u2019s have a great summer!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s tremendously alienating. I\u2019ve had plenty of time to reckon with this inevitable championship for the Knicks, not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":761209,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3767],"tags":[7,670,247,3803,6,671,39762],"class_list":["post-761208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn-nets","tag-basketball","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-nets","tag-brooklynnets","tag-nba","tag-nets","tag-nets-features"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116751032999292569","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=761208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761208\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/761209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=761208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=761208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=761208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}