Nets courting Brooklyn fans
After a grueling practice on Friday, the Nets’ open practice at Brooklyn Bridge Park on Saturday served a dual purpose: a virtual recovery day for the tired players, and chance for the team to build some much-needed inroads in the community.
“It’s awesome,” guard Joe Harris said. “For us, we’re trying to be as involved in the Brooklyn community as possible, and that’s been a focal point from the moment [general manager] Sean [Marks] and [coach] Kenny [Atkinson] and everyone got here. We’re in Brooklyn, and while we’re here we’re going to make the most of it. We’re ingrained into the community.
“To come out and have a lighter day, come out and engage and have a lot of enthusiasm and excitement and adrenaline pumping to be a part of this. We’re appreciative to have sort of a day off, but be able to be a part of this. It’s definitely a good change of pace.”
The open practice drew enough fans to pack Brooklyn Bridge Park and create an energetic atmosphere with the East River and Manhattan skyline as a backdrop. But the fact of the matter is attendance is, and seemingly always has been a problem for the Nets, one that has followed them from East Rutherford, N.J.
Back in 2001-02 — when they reached the NBA Finals behind Jason Kidd, Kerry Kittles and Richard Jefferson — the then-New Jersey Nets still ranked just 26th out of 29 teams in attendance. They went back to the finals the next year and ranked just 23rd.
They actually failed to sell out Game 4 of the Finals, something that didn’t happened again until last season’s Game 1 at Oracle Arena.
Nevertheless, even if the Nets are still mired near the bottom of the NBA attendance rankings, their actual gate numbers have crept up the past three seasons. And Kittles said events like Saturday can only help build their following in Brooklyn, a rapidly growing borough that the U.S. Census Bureau is projected to overtake Chicago as the nation’s third-biggest “city” by 2020.
“This is great. One of the biggest differences is in the Meadowlands we didn’t have a community,” Kittles said. “We were kind of in the middle of nowhere, whereas here you’re connected to a city, an actual city where there’s fans and people right here in the community you can connect with and be engaging with on a daily basis.
“To have an activity like this for the fans, this park, the views are spectacular. It’s really good for the players and the fans.”