A Jersey
The NBA team the New Jersey Nets almost changed their mascot in the 1990s but one thing stopped them. Themselves.
Transcript:
Just picture it. The clock winding down in game 7 of the 2003 NBA Finals. Jason Kidd has the ball, dribbling near half-court. The game is tied. He can either run out the clock and go to overtime or try to win it right here. San Antonio has everyone covered, so, Kidd fakes right and drives left. Tim Duncan closes in, his height taking away any opportunity. But not quite. Kidd leans in then falls away. He puts up a shot just as the buzzer sounds. The crowd is silent as they watch the flight of the ball. Then… swoosh, the ball falls through the net. The stadium erupts, confetti flies, fans roar and jump in excitement.
Teammates rush Kidd and lift him into the air. Their moment has finally come. They had fallen short in the Finals the year before but not this time. It has been a rollercoaster ride. Not just this season but the past twenty-plus seasons. But here they are once more, at the pinnacle of basketball greatness. The new NBA Champions, the New Jersey Swamp Dragons!
But wait. There’s something not quite right about that. New Jersey didn’t win the series over the Spurs in game 7, they lost it in game 6. They actually still have not won the Finals or even been back there since. And their name wasn’t the Swamp Dragons, they were still the Nets in ‘03. But all of that could have been different. In an alternate reality perhaps they did win that Championship. Perhaps the next twenty seasons would have played out differently. We’ll never know. But there is one thing we do know. For a time, however brief it may have been, The Nets almost made a change to the franchise that could have altered not just their future, but the entire league around them.
They may not be the worst franchise in NBA history but for a while, they were certainly in the running. With the exception of a small run in the early 2000s, which included those two trips to the NBA Finals, the New Jersey Nets, now the Brooklyn Nets, were a bad basketball team. But that wasn’t always the case and their move to Brooklyn wasn’t the first time the team tried to change their persona.
They began as the New Jersey Americans. They were one of the startup teams for the new American Basketball Association, a rival to the National Basketball Association, or NBA. Just one year later though, in 1968, the team moved just a short distance to Long Island and were renamed the New York Nets. And that was what they stayed known as until the 1976 merger between the ABA league with the more popular NBA.
After just one year in the new league, the team decided to move again, back to New Jersey. They brought their name with them this time, becoming the New Jersey Nets. One thing they didn’t bring though was their winning ways. As a member of the ABA, the franchise actually won two championships in the nine seasons of that league, due in large part to their star player Julius Erving, AKA Dr. J. Since joining the NBA however, after having to trade away Erving, they only managed to make the playoffs nine times in their first 18 seasons. And of those nine playoff appearances, they were swept in the first round five of those times and only managed to actually advance once.
Needless to say, in the earlier 90s, the Nets were looking to reinvent themselves once more. The NBA was as popular as it had ever been. Michael Jordan was doing his thing in Chicago, winning three consecutive titles. 1992 had the Dream Team which dominated at the Barcelona Olympic Games. There were so many legendary players in the game at that time, so many great rivalries. Everyone had something to cheer for, except the Nets.
While basketball is a game it is also a business. Fans, players, and coaches want their teams to win. And while yes, owners want their team to win too, they also know that winning teams bring in more money. Fans are less likely to pay money to see a team that always loses. They’re less likely to buy a jersey for a team that hasn’t won a playoff series in the last ten years. And that is where the New Jersey Nets were. They were dead last in the league in merchandising. They even marketed the big stars on their opponent's teams in an effort to attract more fans. But none of it was working.
One of the big issues was that they were in New Jersey. Now, there is nothing exactly wrong with New Jersey, with the exception being that it’s right next door to New York and specifically New York City. Located in East Rutherford, it’s just a long hop, skip, and a jump to get to the big apple. But that didn’t mean New Yorkers living in the big city wanted to make that trek across the Hudson, and the Hackensack River, to see the Nets play. They had the New York Knicks after all, right there at Madison Square Gardens. And while the Knicks were not the Chicago Bulls at that time, they were still better to watch than the lowly Nets.
Anyways. Jersey.
They needed something new to grab people’s attention. Something to rally the fans and get them excited again. Other franchises were doing it. The Charlotte Hornets had a makeover a few years back and it did wonders for them. People loved the new logo and the new colors. Maybe The Nets could do something like that. But how do you make “the nets” exciting? What were the nets? They might as well be the New Jersey Rims, or the Backboards. And to the Brooklyn Nets I mean no offense, this was just the thinking of ownership at the time. It was the 90s, people wanted something flashy, I get it.
Then in comes a new expansion team to the league out of Toronto. Before they eventually settled on the Raptors, they had a lot of other ideas getting tossed about, and among the finalists, there was one idea that caught the eye of former New Jersey Nets president Jon Spoelstra. It wasn’t perfect but it was close. He just needed something to link it more directly to New Jersey. So he took inspiration from looking out his office windows. Located in the Meadowlands, this once beautiful area of wetlands was now seen as nothing more than a polluted swamp.
And thus the Swamp Dragon was born. But before this idea could fully hatch, the team had to get all of their seven co-owners on board, as well as the owners of the rest of the teams in the league. For any name change like this, there would have to be a vote. But even before any of that, the team wanted to take the idea to the league commissioner himself, David Stern, to get his take on it. His reaction was, and I quote, “This is the stupidest fucking idea I have ever heard.”
*Crickets*
And it all could have ended right there. But the commissioner decided to let it play itself out. If they really wanted this, if they could get their group of owners on board, something which he doubted, then the league as a whole would vote on it. And to everyone’s surprise, the Net’s ownership loved it. All seven co-owners were on board.
From that point forward it was full steam ahead. The league spent $500,000 to secure the rights to the name and designs. They hired an LA designer to do the artwork, working with the color palette chosen by the Nets, teal, purple, and black. They had jersey mock-ups, new court designs, the works. It was all coming together.
The Swamp Dragon design was cartoonish, of course, but with an attitude. The uniforms, of which he covered most of, had him spinning a ball on tip of one of his clawed fingers. The warmup jackets and pants had red and black flames up the sleeves and legs. The court had the whole area inside the three-point arc colored purple and teal. It was bold, it was in your face, it was the future of the NBA.
Well, maybe.
There was still that one final hurdle for the team to get past, the rest of the league owners had to approve it. But the Net’s felt good about it. They’d courted the other owners and received lots of positive feedback. They didn’t think it would be a problem getting the necessary votes. But then came the public backlash. Word got out regarding the potential name change and fans were not happy about it. People were upset the Meadowlands was referred to as a swamp. There was some debate about changing the name to Fire Dragons, take the swamp out of it, but they held their ground.
Then came the day of the vote and the final numbers were in. It was a shocking 26 to 1, and naturally the commissioner of the league was upset, furious even. But the Nets were confused. 26 to 1, that vote was in FAVOR of the name change. What could possibly be the problem with that? Well, the thing was, the one dissenting vote, the one team that voted AGAINST the name change, was… well, THE NETS!
As I said, the Nets had seven co-owners, and those seven people took turns whenever it came time for a representative from the team to vote with the rest of the league. And yes, all seven co-owners were initially on board with the name change. But this one guy, they called him the nervous nellie of the group, it was his turn for voting duty when the name change came up. And when the time came he simply couldn’t pull the trigger and vote yes on turning the Nets into the Swamp Dragons.
So just like that, it was all over. A team can’t go forward with a name change, a league-approved one at that point, after its own owners vote against it. New Jersey would stay the Nets. They’d keep losing for a while, keep struggling to bring in fans. In 1998 they did change the jerseys and their logo, but it wasn’t enough. It was the same red, white, and blue colors, a basketball, and the Nets name. It was the same one they were still using until the team packed up and moved to Brooklyn in 2012, back to New York where they had had success as part of the ABA.
Would the New Jersey Swamp Dragons have had a different fate? Would the new logo and name have brought in more fans and more money? Would they have been able to bring in better players, win more games? Would the Swamp Dragons have triumphed in the 2003 NBA Finals where the Nets had failed?
A number of star players have donned the Nets jersey over the years. From Dr. J to Jason Kidd, Vince Carter to Deron Williams. Players that were on the team when they were still in New York and those there when they returned to the big city 35 years later. Players that saw the logo design change again and again. A team looking for that spark to take them to the next level. A spark that, to this day, hasn’t come.
Because maybe it’s not about the logo. You can change the image, change the colors even. You can move cities, back and forth. You can give New Jersey new jerseys. But no matter how you dress it up, the team remains the same. Sure, once upon a time they had their chance to roar like dragons. They had a chance to be new and be bold. A chance to show the league who they really were. But, when the time came, when the pressure was on, they missed their shot.
Today’s episode was written by me, Cory Greiner. Keepsake is produced and edited by Alex Hoelscher. If you have an idea you’d like us to explore on the show, send us an email at keepsakepod@gmail.com or find us on Twitter @KeepsakePodcast.
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And finally, next episode’s item, A Water Can.
This has been Keepsake. Thanks for listening.