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NBA New Jersey Nets History History The 1990s During the early 1990s the Nets began to improve behind a core of young players, as New Jersey drafted Derrick Coleman and Kenny Anderson and acquired Drazen Petrovic in a trade with the Portland Trail Blazers. Despite a losing record during the 1991-92 season, the Nets qualified for the playoffs, losing to the Cleveland Cavaliers in the first round, three games to one. The team improved significantly in 1992-93, led by the trio of Coleman, Petrovic and Anderson, and former head coach, Chuck Daly. However, injuries to both Anderson and Petrovic toward the end of the season sent the team into a 1-10 slump to end the regular season.

The Nets finished the season at 43-39 and were seeded sixth in the Eastern Conference and faced the Cavaliers again in the first round. With Anderson recovered from a broken hand and Petrovic playing on an injured knee, the Nets lost a tough five-game series. However, the optimism of a team jelling was destroyed on June 7, when Petrovic was killed in an automobile accident in Germany at the age of 28.

Despite the devastating loss of Petrovic, the Nets managed to win 45 games during the 1993-94 season, losing to the New York Knicks the first round of the 1994 NBA Playoffs, three games to one. Daly resigned as head coach after the season and was replaced by Butch Beard.

The team struggled through the rest of the decade. During the mid-1990s the NBA's main image problem was that of the selfish, immature athlete and if one wanted to see a team that embodied that image, all one had to do was look at the Nets. In 1995, Coleman was featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated as the poster child of the selfish NBA player, but with Anderson, Benoit Benjamin, Dwayne Schintzius and Chris Morris also on the roster, there were plenty of candidates for SI to choose from. The team's image was so poor that in an effort to shed its losing image, management considered renaming the team "Swamp Dragons" in 1995, but rejected the idea. In both the 1994-95 and 1995-96 seasons, the Nets finished with identical 30-52 records.

In an effort to start a new, Coleman and Anderson were both traded during the 1995-96 season and John Calipari replaced Beard as head coach at the end of the season. 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 win-loss 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 was a lone bright spot for the Nets in the late 1990s. The team played well under Calipari, winning 43 games and qualifying for the playoffs on the last day of the season. 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.

The "Secaucus Seven" sold the team in 1998 to local real estate developers, who the next year signed an agreement with New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner to form YankeeNets, a holding company that would own the two teams along with increasing leverage in future broadcast contracts by negotiating together. After getting offers from numerous broadcast partners, including what was their current rights holder Cablevision, YankeeNets decided to launch a new regional sports television called YES Network.

The 1998-99 season was delayed for three months due to an owners' lockout of the players. When the abbreviated 50-game season began, the Nets were a fashionable choice by experts as a surprise team. However, Cassell was injured in the first game and the team started poorly. With the Nets underachieving at 3-15, the Nets traded Cassell to the Bucks, while the Nets acquired Stephon Marbury from the Minnesota Timberwolves. After two more losses, Calipari was fired as head coach with the team at 3-17. The team never recovered from its poor start to finish at 16-34. With the Nets already eliminated from playoff contention in April, Marbury collided with Williams in a game against the Atlanta Hawks -- Williams broke his tibia and would never play in the NBA again.

The 2000s

In 2000, the Nets hired as the team president Rod Thorn, a longtime NBA executive best known for drafting Michael Jordan while he was the Bulls' general manager. Immediately, he began to assemble the components of the most talented team since the ABA champions of the mid-1970s. He started by hiring Byron Scott as coach. With the first pick in the 2000 Draft, the Nets selected Kenyon Martin from the University of Cincinnati. On the night of the 2001 Draft, they traded the rights to their first round selection (Eddie Griffin) to the Houston Rockets -- Richard Jefferson, Jason Collins and Brandon Armstrong.

Just after the 2001 draft, Thorn made his boldest move. He traded all-star Marbury to the Phoenix Suns for all-star and all-nba point guard Jason Kidd. The move gave the team something it had been lacking for practically its entire NBA existence, a floor leader who also made his teammates better.

That season, the Nets had their best season in their NBA history. The team won its first Atlantic Division title, finishing the regular season at 52-30 and were seeded first in Eastern Conference and faced Indiana in the first round of the 2002 NBA Playoffs.

After losing the first game at home, the Nets then went on to win the next two games, before losing game four on the road. In front of a sellout crowd, the Nets played one of the more memorable games in NBA Playoff history in game five. The Nets led by nine points with five minutes remaining in regulation, however Reggie Miller made a 35-foot three-pointer at the buzzer to send the game into overtime (as replays later showed, Miller's shot was actually after the buzzer and therefore should not have counted). After Miller sent the game into double-overtime with a driving dunk, the Nets pulled away for a 120-109 victory. It is the only game in NBA history to end every quarter—the first quarter, first half, third quarter, second half, and first overtime—tied.

In the Eastern Conference Semi-finals, they defeated the Charlotte Hornets four games to one to advance to the Eastern Conference Championship for the first time facing the Boston Celtics. After winning game one versus the Celtics, the Nets lost game two at home. In game three, the Nets led by 21 points going into the final period, but a tremendous Celtic comeback gave the Celtics a 94-90 victory and a 2-1 series lead. In game four played on Memorial Day afternoon in Boston, the Nets led most of the way but once again the Celtics found a way to tie the game with a minute remaining. However, in this game the Nets made enough plays at the end of the game to win it - Harris made two free throws with 6.6 seconds left and when Paul Pierce missed two free throws that would have tied the game with 1 second left, the series was tied at two games each. In game five, the Nets went on a 20-1 run early in the fourth period to coast to a 103-92 victory and a 3-2 lead in the series. In game 6, the Nets trailed by 10 at halftime, but rallied in the second half to take the lead. Van Horn's three pointer off a Kittles pass with 50 seconds left in the game clinched the Nets their first Eastern Conference Championship, four games to two.

In the 2002 NBA Finals, the Nets were swept by Shaquille O'Neal, Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers.

Before the 2002-03 season, the Nets traded Van Horn and MacCulloch to obtain Dikembe Mutombo from the 76ers. The move to improve the team did not work out as Mutombo sat out most of the season with a wrist injury, but received little time in the playoffs due to differences with coach Byron Scott. Despite Mutombo's absence, the Nets finished with a 49-33 record and repeated as Atlantic Division champs. In the 2003 NBA Playoffs, the Nets won their second consecutive Eastern Conference championship. They defeated the Milwaukee Bucks in the first round of the playoffs four games to two, then swept the Celtics and Detroit Pistons in consecutive series to advance to the 2003 NBA Finals, this time facing the Western Conference champion San Antonio Spurs. They split the first four games in the series, but the Nets played erratically in a Game 5 loss at home to go down in the series three games to two. In Game 6, the Nets led the Spurs by 10 points on the road with 10 minutes remaining, but the Spurs went on a 19-0 run to take the title in six games.

Following the 2003 Finals, Kidd became a free agent and the Spurs pursued signing him away from the Nets. However, Kidd re-signed with the Nets, stating that he had "unfinished business" in New Jersey. Another factor in Kidd's decision was the signing of free-agent Alonzo Mourning. But Mourning's tenure with the Nets would be disastrous, as he missed most of the 2003-04 season due to a kidney ailment.

In 2004, the Nets again won the Atlantic Division title, and after sweeping the crosstown rival Knicks in the first round, their run of conference championships was halted in the Eastern Conference Semi-finals by the eventual NBA champion Detroit Pistons. After the teams split the first four games, each one large routs at home, the Nets took Game 5 in Detroit in triple-overtime, only to fall short in Game 6 in New Jersey. The Pistons won Game 7 in a rout and took the series 4 games to 3. Jason Kidd, playing on an injured knee that eventually required surgery after the season, was held scoreless in Game 7.

After the season, the Nets were forced to trade Kerry Kittles and Kenyon Martin, to the Clippers and Nuggets respectively, because new owner Bruce Ratner was unwilling to pay the remainder of their contracts. They received only draft picks in return for two key players in the team's recent success. However, after a disappointing start to the 2004-05 season and losing Richard Jefferson to injury for the season, the Nets acquired disgruntled star Vince Carter from the Toronto Raptors in exchange for Mourning, who was released by the Raptors (and subsequently rejoined the Miami Heat), Eric Williams, Aaron Williams and draft picks.

Teamed with Kidd, Carter rallied the team from being more than 10 games out of the playoffs to gain the final seed in the Eastern Conference. However, the Nets could not overcome O'Neal again even with Jefferson back from his injury and were swept by the Heat in the First Round of the 2005 NBA Playoffs.

During the offseason of 2005, the Nets actively pursued a starting-quality power forward to fill that void after drafting Antoine Wright, a 6' 7" swingman because all the talented power forwards were taken in the draft.

Eventually settling on Shareef Abdur-Rahim, they actively courted him and gained his approval even though they could only offer him the mid-level exception. In order to get him a larger, more lucrative contract, the Nets pursued a sign-and-trade with Portland. There, negotiations hit a snag because Portland demanded a first-round draft pick, which the Nets adamantly refused to part with. Eventually, the Nets agreed to give Portland a protected first-round pick and their trade exception acquired from the Kerry Kittles trade. This allowed the Nets to keep their mid-level exception for signing other players. However, Thorn decided to void the Abdur-Rahim trade when he failed his physical examination because of a pre-existing knee injury. To fill Abdur-Rahim's slot on the roster, the Nets acquired Marc Jackson from the Sixers.

They used part of the remaining mid-level exception to re-sign Clifford Robinson for two years in response to Brian Scalabrine's departure. A back-up to Kidd was also sought and they actively courted free agents such as Keyon Dooling before turning their attention to talented, but aggravating (at times) Jeff McInnis, whom they eventually signed and was a non-factor in the Nets Season due to injury and eventually was traded.

The Nets started the 2005-06 season slowly, struggling to a 9-12 record in their first 21 games. However, behind strong play by Carter, Kidd & Jefferson the team won their next 10 games (their final 8 games in December and first two games in January) to surge to top of the division. After the winning streak, the Nets returned to their earlier mediocre play (winning only 13 of their next 29 games), but starting on March 12 the Nets won their next 14 games in a row - the longest winning streak in the NBA this season and matching the franchise record set in 2004. The streak ended on April 8, 2006 when the Nets loss to the Cavaliers 108-102 at home. They set a team record with 20 road victories this seaon.

The Nets finished the 2005-06 regular season with a 49-33 record. They clinched their 4th Atlantic Division championship in the last five seasons and the 3rd seed the Eastern Conference playoffs, playing the Indiana Pacers in the first round of the 2006 NBA Playoffs. It seemed they had returned to their elite status of a few years back. They defeated the Pacers and advanced to the second round where they played the Heat, in a rematch of 2005's first round Eastern Conference loss. On May 16, 2006, the Nets lost the best-of-seven series 4-1 to the Heat.

Highlights of the season include the naming of Vince Carter to the All-Star Team in 2006. Originally named as a reserve, an injury to Jermaine O'Neal elevated Carter to a starting position. Kidd, meanwhile, was named to the NBA All-Defensive team at the end of the season.

The 2006-07 NBA season fared poorly for the Nets but finished on a bright note, as they suffered a barrage of injuries starting in the preseason to mid December. Many experts predicted they would win the Atlantic easily (Charles Barkley went as far as to say the Nets would win the Eastern Conference), but the season did not turn out as hoped. The Nets finished the regular season at .500 (41-41) and lost the Atlantic Division title to the surprising Toronto Raptors. The early-season loss of Nenad Krstic to a freak Knee injury and the two-month absence of Richard Jefferson caused by an ankle injury caused the Nets to stumble mid-season. However, Jefferson went back into action on March 9th against Houston and helped the Nets regain a winning momentum, allowing them to win 10 of their last 13 games. Among the highlights of the regular season were the naming of Kidd and Carter to the '07 East All-Star team and Kidd's selection to the 2007 All-Defensive 2nd Team. New Jersey finished with the 6th seed in the East and faced the 3rd seeded Toronto Raptors, feeding their newly developed rivalry. The Nets beat the Raptors in six games thanks in part to the fourth quarter heroics of Richard Jefferson on both ends of the floor lifting them to a one-point victory. Their playoff run ended, however, in the following round as they fell to the Lebron James-led Cleveland Cavaliers 4-2 in the best-of-seven series. They own the 17th pick for the 2007 NBA Draft, which was used to pick "troubled" Boston College player Sean Williams. They then lost Mikki Moore to the Sacramento Kings, but gained Jamal Magloire from the Portland Trailblazers.

Season-by-season records

Season	W	L	%	Playoffs	Results
1990-91	26	56	.317
1991-92	40	42	.488	Lost First Round	Cleveland 3, New Jersey 1
1992-93	43	39	.524	Lost First Round	Cleveland 3, New Jersey 2
1993-94	45	37	.549	Lost First Round	New York 3, New Jersey 1
1994-95	30	52	.366
1995-96	30	52	.366
1996-97	26	56	.317
1997-98	43	39	.524	Lost First Round	Chicago 3, New Jersey 0
1998-99	16	34	.320
1999-2000	31	51	.378
2000-01	26	56	.317
2001-02	52	30	.634	Won First Round Won Conference Semifinals Won Conference Finals Lost NBA Finals	New Jersey 3, Indiana 2 New Jersey 4, Charlotte 1 New Jersey 4, Boston 2 Los Angeles 4, New Jersey 0
2002-03	49	33	.598	Won First Round Won Conference Semifinals Won Conference Finals Lost NBA Finals	New Jersey 4, Milwaukee 2 New Jersey 4, Boston 0 New Jersey 4, Detroit 0 San Antonio 4, New Jersey 2
2003-04	47	35	.573	Won First Round Lost Conference Semifinals	New Jersey 4, New York 0 Detroit 4, New Jersey 3
2004-05	42	40	.512	Lost First Round	Miami 4, New Jersey 0
2005-06	49	33	.598	Won First Round Lost Conference Semifinals	New Jersey 4, Indiana 2 Miami 4, New Jersey 1
2006-07	41	41	.500	Won First Round Lost Conference Semifinals	New Jersey 4, Toronto 2 Cleveland 4, New Jersey 2
2007-08	0	0	.000
Totals	1082	1428	.431
Playoffs	52	65	.444

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