History of the Brooklyn Nets
After the dismissal of major pending lawsuits, groundbreaking for Barclays Center occurred on March 11, 2010.
On September 26, 2011, Jay-Z, the Nets' minority owner, announced that the team's new name after the move to Brooklyn would be the Brooklyn Nets. The team officially became the Brooklyn Nets on April 30, 2012. The team's new colors were announced to be black and white, and two official logos designed by Timothy Morris were unveiled. The primary logo is a shield depicting the team name 'Nets', along with a basketball with an overlaid "B". The secondary logo is the same "B-ball" surrounded by a black circle with the text "Brooklyn" and "New York". The new logo's typeface and colors are meant to evoke New York City Subway rollsigns from the 1950s when Brooklyn last had a major league sports team. This rebranding of the team led to a dramatic increase in merchandise sales for the team. On the first two days that the new merchandise was available, total sales from the NBA Store were 10 times that of a typical year when the team was in New Jersey, and in the initial months of the 2012–13 season, the Nets led all NBA teams in apparel sales.
History of the Brooklyn Nets
On the night of the 2001 draft, the Nets traded the rights to their first-round selection (Eddie Griffin) to the Houston Rockets for Richard Jefferson, Jason Collins and Brandon Armstrong, and selected Brian Scalabrine in the second round. The trade was widely considered a smart move by the Nets as they needed to get younger and clear out much of the dead weight that was on the bench, as the Nets had the lowest scoring and oldest bench in the league the previous season.
One day after the draft, on June 28, 2001, Thorn traded all-star Stephon Marbury and role player Johnny Newman to the Phoenix Suns for all-star/All-NBA point Jason Kidd and Chris Dudley (whom the Nets later released). The move gave the team something it had been lacking for practically its entire NBA existence, a floor leader who made his teammates better. They also signed Todd MacCulloch, who was coming off a solid playoff run with the 76ers in which he shot 63% from the field in 18 games. The 2001–02 season turned out to be the best season in the team's NBA history, and in the process, the Nets became one of the most exciting teams in the league. The team won its first Atlantic Division Title, finishing 52–30 and seeded first in Eastern Conference and faced Indiana in the first round of the 2002 NBA Playoffs.