Brooklyn Nets (National Basketball Association) @ Barclays Center (Brooklyn, NY)

26 IN 26 STOP 4

*This trip occurred on February 7, 2026.

The Brooklyn Nets.

On the one hand, I’ve always had a soft spot for the Nets despite the whole “moving from New Jersey” thing. Their two NBA Finals runs were when I was just starting to get into sports, and I can remember going to several Nets games - including Shaquille O’Neal’s debut with the Miami Heat (which I am 90% certain was the last NBA game I attended before this one). On the other hand...THE TRADE.

I could probably go on and on about just how wild the last decade or so has been for the Nets because inasmuch as I think I like the Nets, I absolutely LOVE just how stupid THE TRADE ended up becoming for the franchise. For those who don’t know, let me tell you a little bit about the Nets’ history (this may or may not be short):

Founded in 1967, the Nets were originally a member of the American Basketball Association - a "rival" to the NBA in the 1960s and 70s (like the AFL for the NFL or the WHA for the NHL). In 1976, the ABA merged with the NBA, and the Nets joined the NBA along with three other teams (the Denver Nuggets, Indiana Pacers, and San Antonio Spurs).

The Nets were somewhat nomadic in their ABA and early NBA days - moving from arena to arena in the New York area before eventually settling into an arena in the Meadowlands Sports Complex (where the Giants and Jets currently play). For the most part, they weren't all that successful in the NBA (though they did win two ABA titles), but there was a brief period in the early 2000s where they made back-to-back NBA Finals (but lost both).

In 2004, a real estate investor bought the team and announced plans to relocate them to Brooklyn, NY; however, funding issues plagued the proposed move (which made children like me hopeful they could stay in Jersey). Unfortunately for New Jersey, said funding issues were resolved when a wealthy Russian businessman bought the team in 2009 and provided funding for the construction of the arena. The Nets played a few final "lame duck" seasons at the Prudential Center in Newark, then made the move to Brooklyn in 2012 - becoming the first "Major League" team in the borough since the departure of the Dodgers.

In their first year in Brooklyn, the Nets decided to suddenly be aggressive in terms of acquiring star talent from around the NBA (because OF FREAKIN' COURSE THEY DID)¹. This push saw them go from one of the worst teams in the NBA to the fourth best team in the Eastern Conference, but the team fell in the first round of the playoffs. In the wake of that playoff exit, management decided to continue to be aggressive in trying to win a title in the short term - thus...

THE TRADE.

The Nets sent a handful of “lesser” players and several draft picks to the Boston Celtics (i.e. my hometown NBA team) in exchange for the Celtics’ best players - who had won a championship in 2008 and SHOULD’VE won a second two years later (grumble grumble). The belief now was that the Nets had the pieces to deal with the NBA’s “megavillains” at the time: LeBron James and the Miami Heat.

It didn’t work. Despite the Nets making the playoffs the first two years after the trade, they never made it to the Eastern Conference Finals (and actually won FEWER games each passing year). The players they got from the Celtics didn’t last long either; a large part of that being the fact that they were WELL past their primes (i.e. north of 35) while the core pieces of the aforementioned Heat (i.e. LeBron) hadn't reached 30 yet. In addition, the team was unable to add the pieces that were going to be necessary in order to sustain the team for ANY length of time - short or long.

By 2015, many of the players who made those first three years in Brooklyn successful were gone, and the team sank like a rock in the standings. They spent a few years languishing near the bottom of the NBA, but instead of being able to get young players to develop through the draft...the picks they traded to the Celtics were due. Not only had the Nets torched their own chances at a rebuild, they ended up giving the Celtics - who were on the rise at the time - access to the best players coming out of college, who did in fact become stars (something that is definitely deserving of more discussion - maybe if I visit the Sixers one day).

After several years of watching the Celtics rise to the upper echelons of the NBA with players who probably should’ve been Nets, the team chose once again to try and land marquee players - and they did! Heck, they even got a star FROM THE CELTICS who they had acquired using one of the Nets’ picks (IYKYK, but I sure as heck ain't saying who). Those marquee players got the team within literal inches of the franchise’s first NBA Finals appearance since moving to Brooklyn, but came up just short². In the wake of that near miss...the team imploded again.

Now, the Nets are basically in full rebuild mode - trying to develop a young team to lead the franchise towards consistency and...losing a lot. They're at or near the bottom of several statistical categories in the league, and are currently the only team in the NBA with more than 10 sub-100 point games in the "anything less than 100 is AWFUL" NBA (which includes them posting the two lowest scores this season). With that territory, however, comes relatively inexpensive tickets³; when I looked at the Nets’ schedule for 2025-26, this was the only afternoon game I could find that seemed doable for me, so I decided to go for it.

Part of the reason this game was so cheap: it's against the Washington Wizards - another one of the East's bottom feeders (case in point: I went to the NBA Store in Midtown Manhattan about a month before this game and couldn't find any Nets OR Wizards jerseys). However, about a month before this game (and after my visit to the NBA Store), the Wizards shocked the NBA by acquiring one of the league's higher profile players, then subsequently added another well known name a few days before this game. However...neither of those guys played.

Anyway, now that I've discussed all of THAT, let's move on and actually start talking about the game/building itself. As mentioned earlier, Barclays Center has been the home of the Nets since they moved to Brooklyn back in 2012; in 2021, the New York Liberty (officially) moved in since the team was sold to Nets ownership a few years prior⁴. It's also a fairly important building for the NBA as a whole - being the host of the NBA Draft each year since 2013 (except for 2020 when the draft was remote because of COVID). As a side note, I saw some parking options when I got my ticket and they were kinda expensive (partially due to city parking prices); however, the arena is right next to the subway PLUS a commuter rail terminal, so I assume a lot of people (myself included) are more likely to arrive by train rather than car⁵.

The arena features two concourses that both fully encircle the court. The main entrance (which faces a subway entrance) is at one of the ends of the court, and from what I could tell, a few luxury seats plus an area where the YES Network (which airs Nets games) does their desk segments (i.e. pregame and postgame).

The far end of the lower concourse as well as both ends of the upper concourse feature bar areas where fans can more easily watch the game with a drink in hand. I didn't really check these out too much, as I did something I rarely seem to do on this blog: spend most of the game in my seat. Also, the upper concourse only has concessions/merch on the "sides" of the court and basically nothing outside of bathrooms in the corners - and it also feels a bit narrow/cramped. One thing I must admit, however, is that even though I was in the upper deck, I REALLY liked this view:

As for the game itself...

For a team as bad as the Nets, the crowd seemed rather decent. There were quite a lot of fans for this game, and they were cheering the Nets/booing every Wizards free throw throughout the game (and also banging thundersticks which were given out around half time).

I do not want to get into the idea of tanking here - i.e. trying to lose games to improve draft position. Fans don't like the idea of intentionally losing games (a Wizards fan in my row admitted as much), and there's an element of "rigging" involved which should - ESPECIALLY in the era of prop bets (i.e. betting on a player to reach certain statistical thresholds).

HOWEVER...

It's a bit difficult to gauge whether or not "tanking" is involved when the Wizards DELIBERATELY nerfed their own roster to HELL and trailed by 33 at half time, yet the Nets "only" won by 14 points - though that may just be due to these being two of the worst teams in the NBA...

Also, I found out that the NBA's shot clock features a secondary clock for timeouts to inform everyone of how much time is left before play is to resume - something I've never seen before and REALLY like (as I've tried to time breaks in the action for other sports in the past year).

MERCH

I visited the arena's main store one day last fall; it was during the Liberty's season, so they were the "main team" at the time (but I didn't end up buying anything). I personally found it to be a bit on the small side and kinda hard to navigate, as the racks made the aisles fairly narrow (and the thing with this visit was that I was the only person browsing). One thing I did not remember from that last visit that I wish I did, however, was THIS:

At this game, I was a little surprised to find that there were only five other merchandise areas in the arena: one just inside the main entrance, two on the upper concourse, a kids area, and what I can only describe as a "high end street wear" kiosk.

I've mentioned my relative lack of interest in basketball jerseys on this blog in the past, but one thing that irks me more than anything else: heat pressed/glued letters and numbers (which most replica jerseys nowadays feature in the NBA/MLB/NFL/NHL⁶). I do feel like they LOOK a bit better than the old material (i.e. ironed-on rubber that fades after several turns through the laundry), but I always worry that they're going to fall off after a couple of washes, and once that happens the jersey is basically ruined (especially if you don't wash the jersey "the right way").

NBA "Authentic" jerseys do feature stitching, but I could not find ANY authentics at the team store. Maybe it's due to the Nets being, well, rather obscure, but while I did THINK about getting a jersey, I ended up not due to the heat pressed details plus the base material feeling "not right".

Also, I'm not sure where to mention this, but there was a VERY short lived mac and cheese spot here back when I was in college. I know this because I passed by it a few times when I was trying to see the team store back in the day (it was never open though), as their original location was right by my school⁷.