Taking Sides: Two Brooklynites Debate Why They Will (and Won't) Leave the Knicks for the Nets

Fifty-five years after the Dodgers left for the West Coast—and an additional two-day wait because of some bitch named Sandy—Brooklyn is hosting its first major professional sporting event tonight when the newly minted Brooklyn Nets take on the Toronto Raptors at the Barclays Center on the corner of Atlantic and Flatbush avenues.

A lot of folks have weighed in on the impact the arena and team will have on the borough (if you read one think piece about it, make it this one), but the question in our office was: Would longstanding Brooklyn residents, and long-suffering Knicks fans change allegiances and jump ship for the Nets and their celebrity owner, fancy new logo and colorway, and supposed BK pride? We talked to Brooklyn native Papoose about it last month (because all those other pubs already asked Spike Lee—who's sticking with the Knicks):

"A lot of people are disloyal but it puts everyone in an awkward position, especially if you’re from Brooklyn," said Papoose. "You know the Knicks your whole fucking life and they always let us down but it’s still New York. The Nets are Jersey’s team, let’s keep it real. But now they’re in Brooklyn. If they go against each other, I can’t go against my borough. I got to go with Brooklyn. If you’re from Brooklyn and you take pride in your hometown, then you got to go with where you’re from."

Really? At least one Brooklyn native begs to differ. Complex editors Justin Monroe and Jack Erwin, the former BK born and bred, the latter a resident since he was 20—and both Knicks fans with the battle scars to prove it—took up the issue for themselves. One still bleeds orange and blue, while the other has gotten caught up in the BK madness. They explain themselves in the essays that follow.

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By Justin Monroe (@40yardsplash)

Three and a half blocks. That’s all that stands between the brownstone I grew up in and now co-own and the ass-end of the Barclays Center, home of the Brooklyn Nets. I’m not sure how many heaves of a basketball that is from the S. Portland stoop my family’s been sitting on since the late ’60s to the wavy, rusted steel siding that was made to look like it has that kind of history, but not many. Based on proximity, BK pride, appreciation of good point guard play, and even a love of minority owner Jay-Z’s music that dates back to his 1993 guest verse on Original Flavor’s “Can I Get Open,” I should be rocking a retro-cool Brooklyn Nets jersey right now. But I’m not. Nor will I ever, because for me fandom is as black and white as that apparel that’s flying off the shelves of the team store on Flatbush Ave. I’m an orange-and-blue-blood Knicks fan, and these colors don’t run (at least not on defense).

I’m aware how misplaced loyalty is in sports. The Knicks are not a sporting club that I belong to, paying dues in return for a vote’s say in operations. The Knicks are a business that exists primarily to make money. Winning is a secondary goal, as winners tend to make more money, but the concerns of fans don’t really count until they screw with the bottom line. My friend and colleague Damien Scott, who reps New Jersey with all his heart and now mourns the loss of a franchise that could have shared the Prudential Center with the NHL’s Devils and affected positive change in Newark, can attest to the fact that owners feel no loyalty to a region or its people. If something better comes along, businessmen will uproot.

I am little more than a paying customer, a sucker, a sap who devotes his time and money to an idea of community despite the fact that players, coaches, and executives view me with apathy and even disdain for chiming in on their failings and expecting greatness from them that, quite frankly, I don’t achieve in my own life. Caring about a team, following box scores and player Twitter feeds, and using “we” when talking about a franchise are possibly the most inane things a grown man can do. Beyond claiming bragging rights with other deluded fans, what exactly does a team’s success do to improve my life? So why shouldn’t I shed one team for another, especially when the new one muscled its way into planted roots in my backyard?

It’s not as though the Knicks have filled my life with joy. Unlike fellow Brooklynite Knicks fan Spike Lee, a Fort Greene neighbor whose 40 Acres & A Mule Filmworks office is located around the block from my home, I wasn’t alive to enjoy the 1970 and ’73 championships of Willis Reed, Dave DeBusschere, Bill Bradley, Earl “The Pearl” Monroe, and Walt “Clyde” Frazier. Born in 1980, I watched some NBA in the ’80s but only got into the Knicks seriously during the early ’90s. For more than half of the time I’ve supported the Knicks they’ve been a joke both on and off the court.

I saw some close, exciting playoff exits during the Patrick Ewing era and revelled in Linsanity, that fever that spread throughout the city and the rest of the world when Harvard-educated Jeremy Lin emerged from obscurity to lift the Knicks and become the first Asian-American NBA star, but mostly the organization’s efforts have been calamitous. There have been spectacular individual on-court failings (Charles Smith, John Starks), near-record team futility (23-59 under head coach Larry Brown, then again under President of Basketball Operations turned coach Isiah Thomas), baffling contracts (Allan Houston, Jerome James, Eddy Curry), ill-advised trades (Antonio McDyess, Stephon Marbury, Carmelo Anthony), draft fiascos (Ron Artest >>> Vince Carter tea-bagging victim Frédéric Weis), sex scandals (Zeke, Starbury, Sta-Puft Eddy Curry), and one meddling, obstinate owner who undermines the efforts of his far more basketball savvy staffers (James Dolan). Even now, with legitimate star power on the team in Carmelo Anthony and Amar’e Stoudemire, those mismatched stars can’t co-exist; the team does better when one of them is sitting. I guess it’s a good thing that STAT is perennially injured to the point of being uninsurable.

Knowing that my connection with players is imagined and none of these guys gives a damn about how sad they make me, why do I care about them or the franchise? I don’t. (OK, I do still love Tyson Chandler, Iman Shumpert, and Steve Novak, and I can tell by the way they look into the camera that they care deeply for me too...) But seriously, my bond is with fellow fans. I endure because I have an extended family of equally lunatic followers to share the lows and the highs with. (I presume there will be highs someday.) The 2006 Mets resurgence was a glorious time for me and my fellow Amazin’ fans because that equally inept franchise stunk Shea Stadium up for so many years. Maybe it wasn’t as historic as the Boston Red Sox exorcising demons, but that turnaround felt like every godawful failure in the Mets’ futile history had existed to make that moment more euphoric. I never would have enjoyed that had I decided, fuck it, the Yankees are winners and navy blue goes better with outfits anyway. (With all due respect to NYC’s tricolor flag, nobody looks good in an abundance of orange and blue.)

I have no history with the Nets. I’ve seen the old ABA footage of Dr. J skying to the rim, but during my lifetime it has always been New Jersey’s team. I tuned in for games during the early 2000s J-Kidd and K-Mart era, when the Knicks were free-falling, because occasionally I wanted to see basketball played right. But even as I looked on I never claimed them as mine. (Now, all these years and arrests later, I can finally root for Jason Kidd!)

Throwing on that Brooklyn “B” today would be a fraudulent and empty gesture of support. If I did, and the Nets were to win the title this year, I wouldn’t feel that illogical pride and joy that makes grown men cry. I’d feel about as warmed as I do when I see two strangers get engaged. Good for you, now get outta my way. Brooklyn history on the Barclays Center grounds, for me, will always be walking home from school across the train yards and admiring CHINO BYI‘s skill with a spray can.

Part of what bothers me about the ubiquitous, Jay-Z-designed gear rocked by the Nets and their new fans, many of whom have been “Brooklyn” for about five minutes, since moving here from Connecticut, Omaha, and wherever-the-fuck, is that it’s all so deliberate. The clothes are made to be cool on the street, to go well with everything, and to evoke history, as if the Brooklyn Nets were a long established franchise dating back to the days of the Dodgers. Remember when pops used to spring for nickel bleacher seats so we could watch the Nets run that signature Barclays Center hardwood in their black Converse Chuck Taylor All-Stars? Of course not, because that shit never happened.

Like I said, I’m aware that I’m a customer, but nothing is less appealing to me as a consumer than marketing executives blatantly targeting me and trying to sell me an identity. From “Hello Brooklyn” billboards off the Manhattan Bridge to Jay-Z headlining a string of BC shows like a Vegas act and sporting his personalized Shawn Carter Nets jersey on stage to whip up sales, the effort that’s being made to claim young kids and turn transplants and older Knicks fans is painfully obvious. I never drank Cristal or wore Evisu because Jigga said anything less was wack, and my identity as a headstrong Brooklynite won’t be threatened by the branding of the borough’s first professional sports team since “Dem Bums” left on a flight to L.A. after the 1957 season. Shifting team allegiance to Brooklyn now is the least Brooklyn, most out-of-towner thing I could do. I don’t need a “B” on my chest to know where I’m from.

By Jack Erwin (@JackEComplex)

Sports fans can’t simply change team allegiances, can they? It’s not like picking a different pair of sneakers, or moving across the country, or even ending a relationship. For diehard sports fans, it’s the feelings for a favorite team that actually get you through those other life crises. But I’m using the occasion of the first major professional sporting event staged in my adopted home of Brooklyn to become that most-hated breed of sports fan: the bandwagon jumper. After 25 years of rooting for the Knicks, and 15 years living in Brooklyn, I’m dropping the squad that plays at the World’s Most Famous Arena, and taking up with the team that plays in the world’s most blogged about arena. Yes, my name is Jack, and I’m a recovering Knicks fan. Hello Brooklyn.

First, my Knicks fanhood bona fides: I cried the night Charles Smith went three-for-three, at an age when I was way too old to be crying about professional basketball games. I used to stand in front of a mirror and practice that little curled lip snarl John Starks would do when he got particularly worked up, at an age when I was way, way too old to be mean-mugging in front of mirrors. I can tell you exactly where I was when Allan Houston’s jumper rolled in, and when Larry Johnson sank his three-plus-one. I was at a Luscious Jackson show at the Fillmore in San Francisco when Gabby Glaser announced that the Knicks had been knocked out of the 1995 playoffs on Patrick Ewing’s failed finger roll. I once regaled morning commuters on a Bay Ridge-bound R train, including young kids, with a prayer for the children of Indianapolis, who’d had their eyes burned out by Starks’ sharp-shooting in Game 4 of the 1998 Eastern Conference semis (which the Knicks lost, but whatever, LSD is a hell of a drug). Shit, I remember the Knicks’ six-game winning streak from the Larry Brown reign of error and terror, word to Clyde. (January 2 through January 13, 2006: look it up Justin!) 

For a contrary teenager growing up in the early ‘90s, the Knicks were the perfect antidote to Michael Jordan mania. There are only so many “Be Like Mike” commercials you can watch before you want to go carve some shit into the side of your hair. The Knicks were snarly and petulant and thought they were a little tougher than they really were (except Charles Oakley: he really was that badass)—in other words, they were a lot like me when I was 16.

The Knicks broke your heart every May (and those Junes in ‘93, ‘94, and ‘99), but even that was part of their twisted appeal. It was easy to root for the Bulls in the ‘90s—MJ used to ball with Bugs Bunny for fuck’s sake. Being a Knicks fan could be hard work, and always involved some blood on the floor (literally and figuratively) when all was said and done. But it was always worth it, even if every season ended with the other team celebrating.

And then James Dolan went and fucked all that up. The man shrewd enough to be born the son of the founder of Cablevision was bequeathed stewardship of the Knicks in 1999, and has been on a mission to make the team the most unlikeable franchise in North American pro sports ever since (and that’s saying something). It’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment the whole thing went off the rails—there are so many to choose from—but it’s the feeling of the Dolan era that’s the turn-off for me: a mix of ineptitude and spoiled delusion.

New York sports fans have an incredible sense of entitlement. According to them, any good player, on any team, no matter their contract status or personal proclivity toward the Big Apple, should play in New York. This attitude is extremely distasteful to the rest of the country (no shit you say), but it kinda sorta flies in NYC—as long as the teams actually get those players and they win. I’m not a Yankees fan, but if the Bombers spend $40 million on the left side of their infield, sign the top three free agents every offseason, and then win the World Series, I can at least respect that gangster. But the James Dolan Knicks are like the George Steinbrenner Yankees, minus the wins. And that’s just a pathetic shitshow of bloviation.

The Knicks wanted LeBron; they got Amare. They had a promising thing going with STAT and a bunch of kids, only to trade all the kids for ‘Melo a.k.a. the most incompatible superstar they could’ve possibly paired with Stoudemire. The Knicks’ playoff record in the past decade is well documented, but it’s worth repeating: three first round losses, one win total. The Knicks of the ‘90s got bounced from the Playoffs in all sorts of weird, sometimes dumb ways (if you’re gonna leave the bench, at least punch somebody Patrick), but they never got swept out of the first round.

There’s a lot not to like about the Nets in Brooklyn. The arena fits in the neighborhood like a bowling ball in a shoebox (literally—they tore down people’s homes to make it). The original majority owner made his bank building hideous offices in downtown Brooklyn; the new majority owner made his fortune doing shit we probably don’t want to even know about as an oligarch during Russia’s ’90s money grab. They’ve both found it very convenient to use Jay-Z, who owns less than one percent of the team, as a figurehead for the operation. Please don’t even mention the marketing campaign—it’s thirsty in a way that should make any Brooklynite of more than three weeks uncomfortable.

Then there’s the irony that Brooklyn, the most aggrieved city in the country when it comes to franchise theft (sorry Baltimore and Cleveland) is poaching another fanbase’s squad. Say what you will about the numbers of the Nets’ New Jersey fans, but those who actually went to the games, especially in the Meadowlands, were a hardy breed. It’s one thing to boo Eddy Curry at the Garden; it takes real love to troop to a swamp and cheer a 12-70 team led by Brook Lopez.

And let’s not talk about how the Nets represent the New Brooklyn, or Brooklynland, or whatever you want to call BK these days. I’ll put it as succinctly as I can, in my adopted Brooklynese: Fuck that noise. Brooklyn is an increasingly gentrified, increasingly stratified place with a lot of new residents who are relatively rich, and a lot of longtime residents who are pretty damn poor. It’s got a lot of possibility and a lot of problems, and the Nets are not gonna make much difference with either, no matter how much small-batch goat cheese craft ale they sell at the arena.

And yet... And yet... *calmy puts aside the ability to think rationally* I’ve got a pro sports team in my fucking neighborhood! I’ve been dreaming about that shit since I was eight, son! Like, I shop at that Target across the street from the Barclays Center; I play skee ball in the Chuck E. Cheese that overlooks it! I can now watch a live afternoon NBA game, have a cocktail at Applebee’s, and get a pack of Pampers at Pathmark, all without having to ride the subway! (You see, there are advantages to dropping a massive arena at the edge of a gentrifying neighborhood: budget shopping!) I love you America!

That's the thing about the Nets in Brooklyn (no, not the 300 water balloons you can get for three dollars at the Party City across Atlantic Avenue): they feel like they're mine, or ours. Madison Square Garden is the World's Most Famous Arena, even if it's not the world's most famous arena. I share it with a bunch of tourists from Germany and North Carolina. It's a block from the Empire State Building, a subway stop from Times Square. The Barclays Center is a subway stop from Fulton Mall. There are double-decker tourist buses running through Brooklynland now, but I remember when downtown Brooklyn was a little more rough around the edges. It's kinda cool that LeBron James and Kobe Bryant and Kevin Durant will be coming over to BK now.

And the Nets squad versus the Knicks squad? Get.The.Fuck.Out.Of.Here. Deron (dare-un) Williams >>> Jason Kidd, Raymond Felton, the ghost of Jeremy Lin or whichever bum the ‘Bockers have toting the rock this year. Hell no Joe Johnson isn’t better than Carmelo, but is Iso Joe’s game any more boring than Iso ‘Melo’s? And yes, Kris Humphries is a douche, but he’s a) an underrated player, b) got a sense of humor, c) presumably smashed Kim Kardashian, and d) been cuckolded by Kanye West. Can you say that, Tyson Chandler?!?

There’s nothing in the New York sports world—not Yankees’ World Series wins, not Giants’ Super Bowl victories—that compares to the city in early June when the Knicks are still playing. That’s when the bus drivers bring their transistor radios to listen to the games during their shifts. I wouldn’t bet the ice cubes out of that Applebee’s “top shelf” Long Island Iced Tea on either the Knicks or Nets playing next June. And if the planets align (i.e. LeBron James decides to play minor league baseball) and the Knicks somehow are playing in June, I’ll be cheering them on. I think I’ve earned that right (I went to the Knicks’ free practice for ticketholders in 2005—get off me). But next fall I’ll be back with the Nets. It’s a new day, and I'm drinking the Kool-Aid (it's cool, I'll pour it into a nutcracker).