Greatest moment in each NBA franchise’s history

Brooklyn/New Jersey Nets: 2003 NBA Playoffs

The move to becoming the Brooklyn Nets hasn’t exactly resulted in a multitude of great moments for the franchise over the past few years. Since arriving in their new home, the Nets have gone from loaded with veteran talent and underachieving to having some nice pieces here and there while looking far from a playoff-caliber team.

Subsequently, you have to look back at the Nets and their tenure in New Jersey. More specifically, you have to go back to the New Jersey Nets team from 2001-03 led by Jason Kidd to find the greatest moment in the history of the franchise.

I get that it’s just shy of cheating to state that a franchise’s greatest moment is an entire postseason, but the entire run of the Nets through the 2003 NBA Playoffs to their second consecutive NBA Finals series was outstanding. Even if they fell short of the title again in 2003 after being swept in 2002, it’s impossible to not see the greatness of this Nets team in that moment in time.

The team led by Kidd in his prime, a young Kenyon Martin, and a spry newcomer in Richard Jefferson was incredible to watch. They weren’t running teams out of the gym and scoring a ton, but they were a brick wall on the defensive end of the floor.

In their road to the Finals, the Nets lost just two games over the course of their three series in the Eastern Conference. There was simply no match for this team in the conference and they proved that emphatically in these playoffs. A big reason why was how unreal Jason Kidd was in those playoffs, averaging nearly a triple-double with 20.1 points, 8.2 assists, 7.7 rebounds and 1.8 steals per game. He was just on another level.

The Nets don’t have a championship to show for it as the Shaq-Kobe Lakers stopped them in 2002 and the Tim Duncan-led Spurs thwarted their efforts in 2003. However, these were the glory years for the Nets and there’s nothing greater in the team’s history than how incredible their run in the 2003 postseason was.

Next: Charlotte Hornets