The Brooklyn Nets are trying to climb out of a long championship drought, and Julius Randle is already talking like a man who thinks the trip back to the top can start now.
Brooklyn still has never won an NBA title since moving over from the ABA, and the sting of watching the Knicks celebrate one last season only sharpened the frustration around the fan base. Nets owner Joe Tsai didn’t sugarcoat that feeling when he spoke to NetsDaily.
"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."
The Nets have been there before, falling short in back-to-back Finals appearances in 2002 and 2003. This time, the front office made a clear push to raise the ceiling, and the biggest move was bringing in former NBA All-Star forward Julius Randle.
Randle arrives with a familiar New York background and a track record that Brooklyn hopes translates quickly. During his time with the Knicks from 2019 to 2024, he put together his strongest statistical stretch there, including more than 25 points per game in the 2022-2023 season. He was later sent to the Minnesota Timberwolves in the three-team deal that brought Karl Anthony-Towns to New York.
Now he’s back in the city wearing a different uniform, and he’s not backing away from the idea that Brooklyn can make a real run.
At Nets media day, Randle was asked about the Knicks’ championship and answered, "It was a great thing not just for them, for the city...We plan to do the same thing here."
That confidence has carried into camp. Randle said the Nets have impressed him with the way they’re working, pointing to the level of detail and the edge in practice.
"I'm in my 13th year in the league, and this is the training camp that ranks up there," Randle said. "How we do things, the attention to detail, the communication within drills. And when we get to the live action, how we're competing, how we're talking, guys diving on the floor, offensive rebound, all those different things, little things that help us win games."
For Brooklyn, that kind of energy matters, especially after a season in which focus was questioned late. Randle gives the team another creator and another ballhandler, and the early signs suggest the offense could become a lot more flexible with him in the mix.
Rookie point guard Mikel Brown Jr., the Nets’ top pick this year, said one of the first things Randle told him was about "shocking" the NBA world and getting out of the basement of the Eastern Conference.
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