The Brooklyn Nets are trying to turn the page fast, but they can’t ignore what’s happening across town.
As the franchise works through its rebuild, the Knicks loom large heading into the 2026-27 NBA season. New York is expected to be one of the league’s best teams again, while Brooklyn is projected to be near the bottom. That gap makes the crosstown comparison hard to avoid, especially for a team that has been chasing a championship for years.
“It would be easy to say the Nets aren't paying attention to what's happening in Manhattan, but nobody would believe that. For years, the Nets' biggest advantage was that the Knicks hadn't found their way to contention, which is now no longer the case,” Vincent Goodwill wrote on the Nets for ESPN. The Knicks are league champions heading into the season, and that reality is now part of the backdrop for Brooklyn’s rebuild.
Goodwill also pointed to the Nets’ roster and draft approach. “[Michael] Porter [Jr.] is in the last year of his deal and was productive before being shut down in the last month of the season as the Nets angled for better draft positioning,” Goodwill continued. “The Nets held on to each of their first-round picks from 2025, throwing them into the deep end, and hopefully those swings will start showing promise starting this season.”
For Brooklyn, the focus is not really on the standings right now. Like most rebuilding teams, the bigger questions are whether the young players can take real steps forward and whether veterans such as Porter and Julius Randle can help stabilize the group along the way.
That puts the spotlight on the team’s younger core, including Egor Demin, Mikel Brown Jr., and Noah Clowney. Their growth will be a major part of figuring out what the Nets actually have to build on.
Joe Tsai has already addressed how the Knicks fit into Brooklyn’s thinking, but the message from the organization is clear: the Nets will do what they believe is best for their own future, even if that doesn’t quiet the chatter about Manhattan.
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