Netlinked 9/4/12: It's Too Early To Call the Nets A True Part of Brooklyn

This is a sign many Nets will see when they head from the Barclays Center after games back to wherever they reside for the season; be that in New Jersey, Manhattan, or anywhere else for that matter.

New Nets beat-writer for the New York Times, Howard Beck, published an interesting piece in today's paper about how the Nets need time to truly become a fabric of Brooklyn's very complex and interesting culture. He cites how no Nets plan to live in Brooklyn during this upcoming season as many will chose to be closer to the team's current practice facility, the PNY Center in East Rutherford, NJ, the same place the team has practiced since they played at the nearby Izod Center.

It is for this reason that Beck says that until the Nets establish a brand-new practice facility in Brooklyn itself (sites in the borough as being visited by the Nets' front office currently), no one on the team will live in Brooklyn thus distancing the Nets from the borough they represent. It's an interesting point nailed down by the final lines of the article:

Brooklyn seems ready to adopt the Nets. It may be a while before the Nets adopt Brooklyn.

I haven't thought of this before, the fact that the Nets' only true current connection to Brooklyn is where they play and what's on the front of their jerseys. However, that idea will probably become naught in the upcoming seasons when the Nets start to practice in Brooklyn and develop legitimate roots in the storied borough. And when that happens, it's gonna be even more fun and exciting to be a Nets fan than it is now.