Reaction: Stephen A. Smith says Kevin Durant Is NY basketball GOAT

Are the Kevin Durant-led Nets even a New York team?

If their fan base size and their playoff ticket sales were any indication, the Nets barely represent the borough they reside in. It is simply a fact that most people living in New York State just don’t care about them. They are Knicks fans. New York fans. It is one thing to have two Los Angeles teams and other cities represented in California, but there isn’t a “California” team in the name.

The Nets franchise, mistakenly I might add, made the move from New Jersey to attempt feeding off the New York market. They knew being the New York Nets would be frowned upon because of how big the Knicks are in NYC, so they settled to be the Brooklyn Nets. I’m not trying to throw shade at Brooklyn itself, but the Nets played themselves. They decided to exclude their potential fan base by choosing a location just as remote as New Jersey was. They literally made camp right outside one of the biggest cities in the world and thought it would work out for them.

So, in a way, the Nets do and don’t represent New York. Brooklyn is in New York and as a borough represents New York City and the state. But, they are just the Brooklyn Nets, not the New York Nets or New York Knicks, and therefore are announcing to the world that they represent an exclusive area since they are neighbors of a team that calls themselves a New York team.

After all, why do you think a lot of people don’t really think about the Buffalo sports teams outside of Buffalo? Besides the fact that Buffalo is so far from NYC that it is practically in Canada. Every other big professional team, the Giants, Mets, Yankees, Jets, Rangers, and Islanders are all “New York” teams. People naturally resonate more with those teams.