They wallowed. They watched with silent envy, or refused to watch at all.
And they looked on with existential exhaustion, ignored and dismissed, as New Yorkers flooded the streets to celebrate the Knicks. They quietly wondered if their team, the other one in town, could blanket New York with the same euphoria one day.
“I felt sick, like you wanted to throw up,” said Jason Kirell, 47, a lifelong fan of the Nets, the Brooklyn-based, cross-borough rivals of the Knicks, a team that he said he deeply “hated.”
“The Knicks winning was depressing for Nets fans, but also, in a lot of ways, I think lit a fire under the fan base in a way that hasn’t been lit in a long time,” said Mr. Kirell, a veteran who grew up on Long Island.
Long a vagabond franchise, the Nets relocated to Brooklyn from New Jersey in 2012, and ever since have had to contend with the Knicks’ 80-year head start in establishing a multigenerational cultural footprint in New York City.
Their move included a brand-new stadium meant to rival Madison Square Garden and to mark the return of a major professional sports team to Brooklyn after the Dodgers left for Los Angeles in the 1950s. The Nets’ black-and-white rebranding, with Jay-Z’s backing, sought to create a cooler brand, as well as a local and potentially global fan base. And the team’s star-studded run in 2021, which painfully missed the Eastern Conference finals, seemed destined to loosen the Knicks’ hold over New York City, however slightly.
Throughout it all, Nets fans — a group of New Jersey loyalists, suburbanites and a new, younger contingent of Brooklyn locals — have been easily outnumbered by Knicks supporters. And, the Nets fandom says, they have been belittled as transplants and newcomers and their very existence even questioned.
So when the Knicks finally broke their 53-year championship drought last week, and many hailed the Knicks as the one true New York City team, the experience was a lonely one for Nets fans.
“It’s a hard mix of emotions because you’re happy for your friends, but you’re also disappointed in all the hate that the Nets are getting,” said Joe Danko, 40, who lives in White Plains, N.Y., and rooted for the Spurs to win the championship. “I think we’re all kind of taking it personally because we pour our hearts out for this team, too.”
Mr. Kirell, the veteran, felt the need to post a series of videos on Instagram listing all the reasons Nets fans should be optimistic about the team’s future and reminding the world — but specifically New Yorkers, Knicks fans and the media — that Nets fans do exist.
“You can go years of your life without running into another Nets fan in the wild,” Mr. Kirell, who now lives in Philadelphia, said in an interview, adding that Nets fans from across the world, including Australia, had reached out to commiserate after seeing his videos.
“It’s another thing to suffer by yourself and to watch another team’s fans reach the mountaintop and you’re not even halfway up the mountain,” he said. “You’re at the bottom of the mountain, and you are looking all the way up and it just makes you angry.”
The Nets, whose record this season was 20-62, are actively rebuilding, hoping to assemble a championship-potential team through signings and the N.B.A. draft, but have been unlucky in recent lotteries in securing high draft picks. In this year’s draft, to be held Tuesday, the Nets have the No. 6 pick.
Fans still reminisce over their glory days in the 1970s, when the Nets played on Long Island and were successful in the American Basketball Association, where they won titles and fans, largely thanks to their superstar forward, Julius Erving, known as “Dr. J.”
And they still remember the 2020-21 season, when the Nets graced the covers of The Daily News and The New Yorker as the team barreled toward the playoffs with their three offensive stars: Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and James Harden. They finished the regular season 48-24 and defeated the Boston Celtics in the first round of the playoffs.
But the team’s championship hopes were derailed by injuries and a loss to the Milwaukee Bucks, which included a painful “what-if” moment in Nets fandom: a game-tying jumper by Durant that would have been a game-winning shot had his toe not been on the 3-point line.
In the days since the Knicks won, hundreds of Nets fans have flocked to a Reddit message board — r/GoNets — to find solace, hate on the Knicks with expletives, double down on their fandom and trade encouraging messages.
The vibes — a mix of downtrodden misery and forward-looking optimism — are grim.
“Being a native new yorker Nets fan right now is the worst fan experience in the history of organized sports,” one user wrote.
“I believe once the Nets start winning we WILL get the respect we deserve — along with a trove of bandwagoners,” another user wrote. “But we don’t need more fans, we just need a winning team.”
Not all Nets fans rooted against the Knicks.
Robbie Janzen, 23, a lifelong Brooklyn resident and Nets fan, said he hesitantly supported the Knicks “because it would be good for the city as a whole.”
“You know, I already have to deal with the Nets sucking and I didn’t want to be the one dude rooting for the Knicks to lose,” he said.
Mr. Janzen, who said he went to Nets games when they were more affordable, watched Game 5 at home: Rooting for the Knicks was already a big ask, and he didn’t feel like being surrounded by hundreds of glory-basking Knicks fans.
Jacob Mark, a Nets fan and Flatbush resident, compared the teams to competing siblings while sitting outside the Nets’ home court, Barclays Center, on Friday afternoon.
“If my sister’s taco shop is doing well, I’m going to support that,” he said. “If the Nets was doing good, I think the whole city would support the Nets.”
He suggested that Knicks-mania was being informed by an atmosphere of instability and despair of life outside the game.
“It’s the only thing to celebrate right now,” Mr. Mark said. “A win is a win.”
For Mr. Danko, who grew up in Queens, the Nets have always been in the family.
His father began rooting for the Nets when the team played on Long Island.
“We just need the pieces to fall together, but I’m going to try to remain hopeful for the future,” he said. “Never switching teams, never joining the bandwagon — I’m a Nets die-hard forever.”
Sarah Chatta contributed reporting.
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