This team deserves the city’s love and affection for once

THIS was early in the remarkable Nets winter of 2001 and 2002, shortly after Jason Kidd arrived from Phoenix and changed everything. The Nets raced out to a nice start, mostly before friends and family at old Continental Arena because the new boss of bosses, Lou Lamoriello, declared attendance padding was a thing of the past in Jersey. So as the Nets began putting together the best basketball show we’ve seen around here since the fabled old Knicks, there were 5,000 people watching most nights. Kidd and Kerry Kittles and Kenyon Martin and Keith Van Horn were playing breathtaking ball, and it seemed like nobody knew or cared. “If this team played its games in Manhattan instead of North Jersey,” an exasperated Byron Scott said one night, “you’d have people writing songs about us. You’d have guys writing poems about this team if it played, what, 10 miles away from here?” Then came a Sunday afternoon in December at Madison Square Garden, and the Nets scored 32 points in the fourth quarter, chased the Knicks out of their own building, made them look like they were playing an entirely different sport. At first, the fans booed. But they al- ways like good basketball at the Garden. They cheered the Nets by the end.

“Maybe we made some new fans today,” Kidd said afterward.

There was no mass exodus in that year or the next one, when the Nets made the Finals again. There were few defections years later, after the Nets moved to Brooklyn, when they made the second round of the playoffs in a year when the latest Knicks free fall was just gaining steam. Forever, the Nets have had the same two problems:

The Knicks had a 30-year head start as an NBA team.

And the Knicks play in Manhattan. At the Garden. Maybe that shouldn’t matter as much as it has or as much as it does. But it has always mattered. It still matters. It matters even as the Nets have put together a wonderful season (despite a buzzkill 113-99 loss to the Blazers on Thursday night at Barclays Center), rising to the sixth slot in the East, featuring one of the most enjoyable, easy-on-the-eyes styles anywhere in the conference.

“We’re hungry and we’re anxious to finish out these last 23 games on a positive note,” Nets coach Kenny Atkinson said before his team slid to 30-30 on the year.

It is a team that should absolutely have the city’s attention now … yet when the horrifying Knicks paid their two visits earlier this year, the building was decidedly split. It is a team that should absolutely be atop any and every free agent’s wish list — every one of them — because the Nets are so far ahead of the Knicks right now it isn’t funny.

But the Knicks play their games at 4 Penn Plaza, Man- hattan, 10001.

And the Nets play theirs at 620 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn, 11217.

The buildings sit 6.1 miles away from each other; they might as well be separated by 6.1 time zones. The Nets are staring at a likely first-round playoff date with either the Pacers, the Celtics or the Sixers, and that should already be a source of anticipation everywhere in the basketball city. There should be a buzz. Do you hear a buzz? Even a quiet one? This July, this is where the heavy hitters ought to make a mandatory stop. Not just a courtesy visit but a long, probing look. All things being equal, why wouldn’t Kevin Durant want to play here? Why wouldn’t Kawhi Leonard?

But things are not equal. Things are never equal. Jason Kidd came to the Nets, the Nets electrified the league, they made two Finals, and they never made a single inroad. Julius Erving won two titles, but they were playing with the wrong-colored ball, and even though the great Knicks teams were exhausted, the Nets never made a single inroad.

The Mets are the No. 2 team in town, but they have seized the stage plenty from the Yankees. The Jets are the No. 2 team in town, but they had Joe Willie and his big arm once, and Rex Ryan and his big mouth once, and they go toe-to-toe with the Giants on the back page every day during football season.

Maybe KD would change that for the Nets, who sometimes seem like the third hoops team in town (behind the Knicks and St. John’s). Maybe Kawhi would. The Nets do things better than the Knicks in every way possible. Maybe nobody will ever write a song about them. But there ought to be a reward for that. Somewhere along the line.