List of Brooklyn Nets head coaches
The Brooklyn Nets are an American professional basketball team based in Brooklyn, New York. They are a member of the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference in the National Basketball Association (NBA). The team plays its home games at the Barclays Center. The franchise was founded as the New Jersey Americans in 1967, and was one of the eleven original American Basketball Association (ABA) teams. In its second ABA season, Arthur Brown, the team owner, moved the team to Long Island and renamed it the New York Nets. The team won ABA championships in 1974 and 1976. When the ABA merged with the NBA in 1976, the Nets were one of four ABA teams admitted into the NBA. The team was moved to the Rutgers Athletic Center in New Jersey; after the 1976–77 NBA season, the team was renamed the New Jersey Nets. Since they joined the NBA, the Nets have won 4 divisional championships, 2 conference championships and appeared in the playoffs 16 times. The Nets moved to Brooklyn in 2012, and now play as the Brooklyn Nets.
New York Knicks
The Brooklyn Nets, formerly the New Jersey Nets, are the Knicks' closest rival geographically. Both teams play in New York City, with the Knicks in Manhattan and the Nets in Brooklyn. Media outlets have noted the Knicks-Nets rivalry's similarity to those of other New York City teams, such as Major League Baseball's Subway Series rivalry between the American League's New York Yankees and the National League's New York Mets, due to both boroughs' proximity through the New York City Subway. Historically, the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn competed via the Dodgers–Giants rivalry, when the two teams were known as the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants. Like the Knicks and Nets, the Giants and Dodgers played in Manhattan and Brooklyn, respectively, and were fierce divisional rivals. The rivalry between the New York Islanders and New York Rangers of the National Hockey League also have this distinction when the Islanders moved to Brooklyn in 2015. Due to the Knicks and Nets being located in the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn, some media outlets have dubbed this rivalry "Clash of the Boroughs". The Knicks and Nets have met in the playoffs three times, with the Knicks winning two of the three meetings. The Knicks defeated the Nets in the playoffs in 1983 and 1994, while the Nets won their most recent meeting in 2004.