#netsrepublic

Nine years after making cap room for LeBron James and then getting turned down, New York is gunning for Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving. Entering the decade, the Knicks gambled and miserably failed, settling on Amar’e Stoudemire as their marquee free agent signing of the summer. Talk about a blunder. The Brooklyn Nets, meanwhile, were still on the under-the-radar-moves market back the, signing the likes of Jordan Farmar and Travis Outlaw. It wouldn’t be until later in the season when both New York franchises blew the horns and traded for Carmelo Anthony and Deron Williams.

From that point in February 2011 until today, only a couple of the moves that have sent shockwaves around the league had their epicenter in NYC. Bargnani joined the Knicks in 2013 while the Nets basically destroyed anything resembling a bright future in the trade with Boston, pushing the win-now mentality to unexplored limits. Good for both NY-based franchises, it seemed like they had learned the lesson with time and perspective taking a place in their paths until KP got kicked out of town entering this past weekend.

Now hear me out. I like trades. Actually, I love trades, and I’m sure you do too. They keep the league alive, they get us glued to our phones refreshing Twitter faster than it can handle it and they are fun to speculate and make stories with, fantasizing about what could and could not happen. The problem, though, is that trades bring agitation, and agitation is not good all of the times. What just happened with the Knicks trading Porzingis, come to think of it, makes me see the franchise in some sort of empty and peaceful place at first thought. They have traded not only KP but also Tim Hardaway Jr., Courtney Lee, and Trey Burke. They have received two guys they will probably cut in Wesley Matthews and DeAndre Jordan. Basically, New York has emptied the room and traded for things-to-come. The thing with this is that the hopes the Knicks will carry from this point to next July when they’ll need to go all-in are surreal. They are and will be over the top. Anything sort of bringing the two best available FAs will feel like a loss.

Brooklyn, on the other side of the coin, remains in a completely different place and stage. Don’t be fooled, though. The Nets have the assets and armory to go all-in themselves and snatch Anthony Davisfrom New Orleans. It would be the most resembling gamble to what the Knicks have done by trading their franchise player. Would it give Brooklyn a better chance at winning the championship? Surely, not a lot of players best AD’s game. Would it be an intelligent move? Nope. No. You know what happened the last time the Nets went for it with a big move. Yes, they made the playoffs. Yes, they lost only against the mighty Miami Heat. Do you know what did they do too? Get into a four-year tailspin that saw the franchise end with a losing record each and every one of those seasons, only to–seemingly–break that span this year.

Brooklynites appreciate the current situation. The front office should too. The vibes around the team can’t get any better. The roster has been affected by injuries as much as you can think of, yet the Nets are still out there battling on a nightly basis. Although results have not gone the Brooklyn way lately with a losing record during the past five games, the season saw a 180-degree turn when the calendar flipped to December. The Nets went from 8-15 at that point to 28-25 by the end of January. They were rewarded with four All-Star call-ups (Russell to the main event, Allen and Kurucs to the youngins’ gig and Joe Harris to the three-point contest).

You can read those last four names again, and try to find some commonality among them. Was I to tell, I’d say they all fit the homegrown, franchise-developed model to a point. Yes, D’Angelo Russell was acquired via trade with the Lakers, but he was an outcast in Hollywood and he was kicked out at the first chance LA had before betting on Lonzo. He has found a home in Brooklyn and nobody can’t tell me he doesn’t look like he’s finally got his stuff right and is on the path to becoming something big. Joe Harris has spent more time in the G-League than in the NBA after being taken by the Cavs in the 2014 draft. Brooklyn didn’t appear in his bio until 2016 when they bet on him by signing the Washington State native to a multi-year deal in July. He just re-signed with the Nets this past summer for no less than $16MM.

Jarrett Allen and Rodions Kurucs, well, no explanation needed. A 22nd and 40th picks by the own Nets, these low-key, under-the-radar, unheralded prospects are now making more than a few franchises regret their draft decisions. Yes, non-lottery picks are usually a crapshoot. But you have to know your stuff and still make a pick, and it is not just pure luck when you get these two folks in back-to-back years. And don’t forget about someone named Dzanan Musawho happens to be lighting the G League up and looks like another key piece for what is yet to come to Brooklyn, same as late call-up Theo Pinson.

So, all in all, the franchise still doesn’t have a roster capable of putting together a deep run into the playoffs. There are flaws, there is a lack of talent (or, at least, fully-developed talent), and the rotation depth is hurt by injuries. A win-now move like going for Anthony Davis would bring immediate–but to my eye false–hopes and expectations to Nets’ fans. A top-five player carries that aura and the need of winning, no matter what is around him (ask LeBron James and his fringe-quality roster). Not a lot of franchises are in the position Brooklyn is at now. Not too good, not too bad either, but surely based on a young core of players with tons of upside and even cap room to spend on game-changers this next summer without the need of pulling the trigger on some risky moves like those performed by the Knicks this past week.

I already wrote a few days ago about how the impression of New York being a blue-and-orange landscape is turning. Turns out the very own Knicks are helping that change happen at light speed now without a visible face in their roster and everything up in the air. Brooklyn’s DLo, Dinwiddie, Allen, and company are the straw that stirs NYC’s drink.

Let me say it again. We all like some trade-related excitement, but we better calm down a little, see the deadline come and go, focus on developing the roster and the young players during the following months and set our dreams on who could arrive come July when the free agency gates open for everyone. Yes, even to those who didn’t take the biggest gamble ever in the history of their franchise and could have potentially give away the most prized player to ever step on their court as one of their own in quite some time.

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I know what you are thinking. I know what I’m thinking, too. I have yet to go deep into this column but I’ve already made an image of it in my brain that tells me it’s going to end up focusing more than it should on the blue-and-orange franchise, considering where we’re at—a Brooklyn Nets website, of all places. The thing is, we all consume popular culture in one way or another—no matter if we care about sports, politics, or any other topic. Films deal with different things; music, too. References to New York City pop up everywhere whether you want it or not, and you can do nothing to fix it, or change those for others linked to Pawnee, IN.

One of the earliest memories I have that contains a reference to New York is the 1998 film Godzilla directed by Roland Emmerich. If I’m honest, it’s been years since I’ve watched the movie for the last time, and I don’t recall everything that happened in it. But I indeed remember one thing: Madison Square Garden appeared on it, and it was sort of a big deal. Not the Meadowlands Arena, nope. The MSG, pertaining to the New York Knicks and not the New Jersey Nets. Being from the very own New York, you may find that as logical, given that the Garden is in Manhattan, and it’s definitely a good fit in any film setup. The problem is that kids like me—who watched the film in a comfy living room across the pond knowing literally nothing about America or the United States—started to get this whole “Knicks-New York Connection” activated in our minds.

Moving fully into sports, the Knicks have always dominated the mainstream coverage of the NBA around the world. It was not often that you found Nets’ caps or tees around your local markets around Europe. It was all Yankees and Knickerbocker gear, and to this point, it still is.

Around this whole idea of the Knicks being present in our everyday life—not to that extent, but you know what I mean—I had my eyes locked into the matchup between both New York teams this past January 25. I had never thought of the rivalry as something historically great—like the Celtics versus the Lakers, for example. From the outside, there was never a picture of a hard-fought battle when the Nets and Knicks faced each other in the NBA. They were just two more teams from the L playing for the win, and that was about it. And of course, you expected the Knicks to come out as winners. I mean, they were the Knicks! The team of the world!

Turns out, they were (and are) not.

Just out of curiosity, I went to check the Knicks-Nets historical record since both teams were part of the NBA (since 1976 when the Nets got in from the ABA in the merger of both leagues). To date, there have been a total of 196 meetings. I would have never expected to find out that the series is dead-even at 98 wins apiece. You can’t write a better story.

It is obvious that looking at historical records and franchise achievements, the Knicks come out on top, and the Nets more or less flop. Wait. Is that really the case, or just the image we’ve been made to believe thanks to all of that bombing of references to the New York Knicks over time? The latter is true. Both the Knicks and the Nets have two championships pre-merger and none after it. So, yes, the New York Knicks have two NBA chips but if we’re honest, we can equate those to the ones won by the Nets while playing in the ABA.

Fast forward to contemporary times, and oh boy have things changed in perception. The advent of the internet, social media, international television, streaming and I-don’t-know-how-much-more technology-driven stuff have flipped the coin. In the era of the meme and the years or decade prior to it, the Knicks have been a mess to say the least, while the Nets have contended and been in the picture on a yearly basis. The early aughts saw the Nets fall short of the championship two times, losing to the unfairly-good Lakers and Spurs teams of 2003 and 2004. A squad led by Jason Kidd, which also featured youngins like Richard Jefferson and Kenyon Martin, was about as good as you could think of for a team back then. Sadly, they couldn’t get their hands on the gold.

Keep going through the timeline up to current dates, and things keep coming the Nets’ way. We have to be honest, both Knicks and Nets fans. While the team from New Jersey struggled, moved to Brooklyn and destroyed its immediate future with a much-maligned trade, the one from Manhattan didn’t do much better when trading for Carmelo Anthony to try to foster a winning spell that never truly came to town and also crumpled the future of the franchise. We must admit that the move to Brooklyn and the Barclays Center brought new vibes to the Nets and created a culture aligned with our times, while the Knicks have remained stuck in the middle of nowhere for the past few years.

Kids like Jarrett Allen were drafted straight by the Nets and loved to be part of a renewed team with high hopes. Other players, like Spencer Dinwiddie or D’Angelo Russell, were brought to the franchise via trade or free agency after being ousted by other teams, and they embraced the challenge of making Brooklyn a new, cool and competitive squad. Heck, even an undrafted Theo Pinson looks promising and is thriving in black-and-white threads nowadays.

Times have changed, and we’re not limited to bits of information spread here and there anymore. The concept of a Knicks-ruled world is over, for good. It’s a pity we’ll not have the chance to see another matchup between Brooklyn and New York this season (sorry, but the Knicks won’t make the playoffs), and we’ll have to wait until next winter to catch one. In that occasion, now with the series tied, the balance will once again fall to one side or the other. A lucky break could award Manhattan’s team the W and give it the edge over Brooklyn, but the trend says otherwise.

Embrace the Nets and forget about the alleged Knicks’ dominance. It belongs to other, long-gone times.

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