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.
History of the Brooklyn Nets
In an effort to start anew, Coleman and Anderson were both traded during the 1995–96 season and New Jersey hired UMass head coach John Calipari to coach the team. Kerry Kittles was selected in the 1996 NBA draft and midway through the 1996–97 season, the team traded for Sam Cassell. After a 26–56 season, the Nets made a major draft-day trade in June 1997, acquiring Keith Van Horn, Lucious Harris and two other players for Tim Thomas. The only player from the early 1990s that the Nets retained was Jayson Williams, who was developing into a rebounding specialist.
The 1997–98 season saw several changes for the Nets. The first was a rebranding of the team that saw the ditching of the previous logo in favor of a 3-D shield logo, which was designed by Patrick McDarby, representing a futuristic backboard that the team used until their departure from New Jersey, along with a new uniform set. The second was the team's style of play, which resulted in the Nets staying in playoff contention for most of the season. The team played well under Calipari, winning 43 games and qualifying for the playoffs on the last day of the season. Power forward Jayson Williams was selected as a reserve in the 1998 NBA All-Star Game. The Nets were seeded eighth in the Eastern Conference and lost to the Chicago Bulls in the 1998 playoffs in three straight games. The Nets played well and came close to taking the first two games.