In its early years, the team led a nomadic existence, moving to Long Island in 1968 and playing in various arenas there as the New York Nets.

[15] The team financed that payment by selling Erving's contract to the Philadelphia 76ers;[16] and the Nets went from winning the last ABA title in 1975–76 to having the worst record in the NBA in 1976–77.

[17][18] During their time in the state, the Nets played in two consecutive NBA Finals in the 2001–02 and 2002–03 seasons, led on the court by point guard Jason Kidd.

[20] During the early 2000s, the Nets were led by Jason Kidd and Kenyon Martin, while the Boston Celtics were experiencing newfound success behind Paul Pierce and Antoine Walker.

The rivalry began to heat up in the 2002 Eastern Conference Finals, which was preceded by trash talking from the Celtics,[21] who claimed Martin was a "fake" tough guy.

On November 28, 2012, there were indications that the rivalry might be rekindled when an altercation occurred on the court, resulting in the ejection of Rajon Rondo, Gerald Wallace, and Kris Humphries.

[34] Seven years later, the teams met again in the first round, and the series went to seven games, with a game-winning block by Paul Pierce, giving the Nets the 104–103 victory.

The blue uniform featured "New Jersey" stacked together in a similar script style, and the letters were colored in red with white trim.

The white uniform, which remained virtually unchanged throughout its history, featured the team name in navy with silver and red trim.

The 2017–18 black "City" uniform featured the full team name spelled in white along with grey accents inspired from the Brooklyn Bridge.

For 2019–20, the Nets wore white versions of the "Biggie" uniforms, but with Haze-designed "BED-STUY" graffiti lettering in front (a reference to Bedford–Stuyvesant where the Notorious B.I.G.

The design featured the herringbone parquet style of the Barclays Center court in shades of black and grey, with Helvetica lettering inspired from the signs found at the New York City Subway.

[44] After the Nets' move to Brooklyn, the team introduced a new superhero mascot named BrooklyKnight (a pun on the demonym "Brooklynite") on November 3, 2012.

In his first appearance, he was lowered from the ceiling of Barclays Center amid sparks and fanfare and introduced by Nets public address announcer David Diamante: "Here to defend Brooklyn, he's the BrooklyKnight."

The character also starred in a 32-page comic book published by Marvel titled BrooklyKnight #1, written by Jason Aaron with art from Mike Deodato.

[47] On November 3, 2012, the Nets introduced a new team anthem titled "Brooklyn: Something To Lean On", written and recorded by Brooklyn-born musician John Forté.

He is known for his signature "whammy", a practice in which he stands on the sidelines in view of opposing players while they are attempting free throws and tries to distract them with pointing, jumping, and yelling.

Reznick believes the practice is effective as Barclays Center often has one of the lowest opposing team free throw percentages in the league.

For example, by January 11, 2023, opposing teams had only a 70.3 free throw shot percentage in Brooklyn, which was about eight points lower than league average for the 2022–23 NBA season.

[59][60] On September 18, 2019, Joseph Tsai, the executive vice chairman of the Alibaba Group, completed the acquisition of full ownership of the Brooklyn Nets.

The next year the group signed an agreement with New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner to form YankeeNets, a holding company that owned the two teams, and later also the New Jersey Devils, and increase leverage in future broadcast contracts by negotiating together.

After receiving offers from several broadcast partners, including Cablevision, which held their rights at that time, YankeeNets decided to launch its own regional sports television called the YES Network.

By that point in time, tensions between the management of the Yankees, Nets, and the Devils had cause a rift between them, and a decision was made to split the group.

After a short bidding process, the group secured a deal in 2004 with real estate developer Bruce Ratner to buy the team for $300 million, defeating a similar offer by Charles Kushner and Senator Jon Corzine of New Jersey.

Jay-Z was a leader in the marketing for the team and helped encourage their move from New Jersey to the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, in which he also held a stake.

Prokhorov sent an offer to the team owners requesting that the controlling shares of the basketball club be sold to his company, Onexim, for a symbolic price.

[76] The option was exercised in August 2019, with Tsai also buying the Nets' arena, Barclays Center, from Prokhorov for nearly $1 billion in a separate deal.

[77] Source:[78] The Nets' practice facility and headquarters for the team's basketball operations are located at the Hospital for Special Surgery Training Center in the Industry City complex in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn.

The facility opened on February 17, 2016, and is built on the roof of an empty warehouse in the complex, occupying 70,000 square feet of space in total.

This made the Nets the second team to opt for a D-League "hybrid affiliation", the first being the Houston Rockets with the Rio Grande Valley Vipers.