The year 2026 will live long in the memory of basketball fans in New York, thanks to the New York Knicks finally ending their long 53-year title drought. It’s been a summer of celebration for Knicks fans, but the same can’t be said about their Brooklyn Nets counterparts.
The Nets have missed the playoffs three years in a row, and owner Joe Tsai admitted to Nets Daily that he is embarrassed by their crosstown rivals winning it all.
“Every year, some team is going to win a championship,” Tsai said. “So it happens that this year that team is in the same city. It doesn’t make us feel very good. It irates our fan base, and it is embarrassing, but in business or in competition, in sports, or in anything, you shouldn’t let the embarrassment factor affect how you perform…. [We] had a plan and we’re rebuilding, and I think right now we are on a positive trajectory.
“So it doesn’t change my thinking at all,” Tsai added.
The Nets have been in rebuild mode for a while now, and Tsai made it clear that the Knicks’ success won’t change their approach in any way. The 62-year-old believes his team is trending in the right direction by following the plan in place.
The Nets finished with a woeful 20-62 record in 2025-26. It was the third-worst record in the NBA, which, in turn, meant they had a shot at getting a great draft pick. The Nets had a 14.0% chance of getting the No. 1 pick in the 2026 NBA Draft and a 52.1% chance of getting a top four pick.
It was quite likely that one of AJ Dybantsa, Darryn Peterson, Cameron Boozer, or Caleb Wilson was headed to Brooklyn, but it wasn’t to be. The Nets slid to No. 6 in the draft lottery and had to settle for Mikel Brown Jr.
Brown impressed during the California Classic and the Las Vegas Summer League, averaging 15.0 points while playing just 21.7 minutes per game. The Nets were being cautious with the 20-year-old as he has dealt with back issues, but it does look like they have added a promising piece.
As good as Brown might turn out to be, though, it’s unlikely he’s hitting the heights that Dybantsa, Peterson, Boozer, and Wilson are projected to. They’re potential franchise players and could have transformed the Nets. They’d have been cursing their luck at the lottery.
It’s now hard to see how this rebuild ends anytime soon for the Nets when you look at their roster. They’ve got some veterans like Michael Porter Jr. and the newly acquired Julius Randle, who are good, but not great. As for the youngsters, Brown and Egor Demin showed promise at Summer League, but that’s about it.
So, expect to see the Nets near the bottom of the pile once again next season. It will be a while before we see them back in the postseason.
This Tsai era certainly hasn’t gone as he’d have envisioned. He had fully bought the team in 2019, and they have won just one playoff series since. It’s not for the lack of trying, though.
It was, of course, in 2019 that the Nets landed Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving. They then acquired James Harden in 2021, and it looked inevitable that they’d win a championship. That trio barely played together, though, due to injuries and COVID-19 restrictions.
The Nets were still just one win away from getting to the Eastern Conference Finals in 2021, but lost to the Milwaukee Bucks in seven games in the Conference Semifinals. It’s been all downhill since. The stars are long gone now, and there isn’t much to be excited about.
As for the Knicks, they seemed doomed after missing out on Durant and Irving in 2019. You wondered if the dark days would ever end, and boy, have they ended. It was a magical playoff run in 2026 that ended with the Knicks beating the favored San Antonio Spurs in five games in the NBA Finals.
The Knicks are now aiming to defend their title, but that will prove difficult. What won’t be is beating the Nets. The Knicks have won the last 14 games between the teams and are just wiping the floor with their rivals at the moment.
