Nets owner says Knicks’ championship is ‘embarrassing’ for his team
· Yahoo Sports
The Brooklyn Nets haven’t been to the NBA playoffs since 2023 and have a winning percentage of .317 since then.
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They have also been tanking to get better draft picks for the last couple of years.
Yet their owner says the Knicks winning the NBA championship this season is the “embarrassing” thing for the Nets.
”Every year, some team is going to win a championship,” Nets owner Joe Tsai told NetsDaily.com. “So it happens that this year that team is in the same city. It doesn’t make us feel very good. It irates our fan base and it is embarrassing but in business or in competition, in sports, or in anything, you shouldn’t let the embarrassment factor affect how you perform…. [We] had a plan and we’re rebuilding and I think right now we are on a positive trajectory. So it doesn’t change my thinking at all.”
Led by team captain Jalen Brunson, the Knicks won the franchise’s first NBA title in 53 years, sweeping the Philadelphia 76ers and Cleveland Cavaliers in the second and third rounds before beating Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs in 5 games.
New York City was swept up in the excitement surrounding the team as celebrities like Taylor Swift, Timothée Chalamet, Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David attended the playoff games.
After the title, the Knicks appeared on the covers of Sports Illustrated, The New Yorker and Time Magazine.
Meantime, the Nets were even more forgotten than they normally are in New York while coming off a 20-62 season despite having five first-round draft picks a year ago.
This summer, they added three more picks, including former Louisville guard Mikel Brown Jr. with the sixth pick.
Asked if the Knicks’ success impacted the Nets’ rebuilding strategy, GM Sean Marks told NetsDaily.com:
“No, not at all. I mean, we’re not, we’re not, we’re not going to be motivated or less motivated by what somebody else is doing. I think we all we control is our path. I think we set out on this a couple of years ago, and I think I’m very happy with what the group has done, what Jordi (Fernandez), the coaching staff, have done to develop these young men, and it’s gonna be really exciting to see what they look like, and you know, whether it’s a year or two years from here, and who really seizes this opportunity?”
Peter Stern, the CFO of Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment, admitted the Nets were “happy” about the Knicks’ title.
“We’re happy for the Knicks,” he told CFO Magazine, via NetsDaily.com. “But even more so, we’re happy for the NBA. You could make an argument that it’s a tailwind because of this reason or that reason, or a headwind. We think about mostly just tailwinds.
“We want more people loving basketball, and the Knicks’ championship, or I should say, even their deep playoff runs previously, really activated many dormant fans. Fans got to engage with it and appreciate this special thing called the NBA in a different way.”
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