Five Nets legends shared one stage at Nets Fest on Sunday, and the conversation kept circling back to the same idea: what it means to wear the uniform, then and now.
Kenyon Martin, Buck Williams, Albert King, Kerry Kittles and Kenny Anderson were all part of the inaugural event, giving fans a look at different eras of Nets basketball as the franchise marked its 60-season history. The group traded memories from their playing days, but Anderson also used the moment to make a pointed pitch about Brooklyn’s future, especially rookie point guard Mikel Brown Jr.
“He’s going to be awesome,” Anderson said.
“They got to let him take control. Just give him the ball. Let him run the team.”
Anderson, the former No. 2 overall pick and New York City native, connected his own path from Queens playgrounds to becoming an NBA All-Star with the Nets to the challenge Brooklyn faces with its young roster. He said Brown Jr. can be a key piece alongside veterans such as Michael Porter Jr. and Julius Randle.
“If you get that one that can just run the team, I think he’s going to be successful,” Anderson said.
He also stressed the value of patience and togetherness as the Nets continue building.
“They got a great coaching staff,” Anderson said. “You just got to keep building and keep working and keep staying together.”
For Williams, the franchise still carries a lifelong meaning. Drafted third overall by the Nets in 1981, he spent the first eight seasons of his NBA career with the team and made it clear the bond never really goes away.
“I’ll be one forever,” Williams said when discussing what it meant to have the opportunity to play professional basketball and be part of the Nets.
King, who was selected 10th overall in that same 1981 draft, echoed that sentiment while reflecting on the rarity of making it to the league at all.
“Being one of the best 5,000, only 5,000 people,” King said, referring to the relatively small number of people who have played professional basketball. “So to be one that had the opportunity to play this game, which I love and I love being part of and being a Net, I’ll be one forever.”
King also looked back on some of the names that helped define the franchise, including Julius Erving, Williams, Michael Ray Richardson and Darryl Dawkins, and shared stories from matchups with some of the NBA’s biggest stars.
Kittles offered a different lens on the Nets’ history. He spent his entire NBA career with the organization from 1996 through 2004 and was a major piece of the teams that reached back-to-back NBA Finals in 2002 and 2003. When he talked about those squads, he singled out Martin.
“I think Kenyon Martin was for sure the heart and soul of our teams,” Kittles said.
He went even further when describing Martin’s feel for the game.
“I think he was probably the smartest player I played with in my career,” Kittles said. “His basketball IQ was crazy.”
Kittles said Martin’s impact went beyond athleticism, pointing to the way he understood the game, from when to set screens to how to read opponents.
Martin, who helped lead those early-2000s teams alongside Jason Kidd, Kittles and the rest of that group, spoke about the competitive edge that defined his career and the need to carry that mindset forward into the next generation of Nets basketball.
The five legends each represented a different chapter of the franchise, but the throughline was clear. Williams and King spoke about pride.
Kittles talked about pride too, saying that word captured what it meant to be a Net. Anderson, asked what it meant to play for the team as a New York native, called it “awesome” and “great experience.”
“Being that I’m from New York, New Jersey, the metropolitan area, it was awesome,” Anderson said. “It was great. Great experience.”
Anderson chose “the love of the game.”
For a franchise celebrating six decades, the sight of five former players from different generations together served as a reminder of how much history sits behind Brooklyn’s current rebuild - and how much of that history is still very much alive.
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