The Opening Tip

• Brooklyn’s shot at true relevance starts tonight
• Some of these offseason contracts make no sense
• The Knicks have found their new savior

Tonight's games

1. 45 years in New York City’s shadow ends … tonight?

The Brooklyn Nets begin the 2020-21 season at home tonight against the Warriors, and you don't need a try-hard marketing campaign (#BrooklynTogether) to know this opener feels unlike any other in the team’s forlorn “big market” history.

• Long in the shadow of a region dominated by the Knicks, these Nets have the star power to compete for a spot in the NBA Finals, and perhaps a bigger piece of the NYC pie -- something they haven't done in seven years in Brooklyn and several decades in New Jersey.  

A brief history:

• Conceived as the ABA's New Jersey Americans in 1967 (they became the Nets of Long Island a year later), the team won two titles in their former league with Julius Erving and Co., before being absorbed into the NBA during the ABA-NBA merger in 1976. 
• The team moved back to New Jersey in 1977, where it stayed, uneventfully, until its move to Brooklyn in 2012.
• Its stay in the Garden State yielded 15 playoff appearances in 34 years, one 50-win season, 12 All-Stars, one prime Hall of Famer (Jason Kidd), and zero titles. 

There were good moments -- the short-lived buzz of the back-to-back Finals trips in the early 2000s -- but mostly there've been decades-long stretches of bad teams and even worse attendance in the Meadowlands.

• (In the 1990s, without any stars or semblance of an identity, they briefly considered going full Barney and changing their name to the Swamp Dragons. It might not have been a great idea, but neither is naming yourself after a piece of equipment. “We had no redeemable history,” former team president Jon Spoelstra told ESPN. “We had never won anything, and our name -- it was like calling the Yankees the ‘New York Second Bases.’”)

As Jersey native Bob Ryan, the unofficial historian of the NBA, wrote on the eve of the New Jersey Nets' final game:
 

The Nets have been Brooklyn's since the 2012-13 season. A failed 2013 win-now trade aside, they've yet to make much hay. Their entire resume in their new town consists of one playoff series win. Once pitched as the spiritual ancestors to the Brooklyn Dodgers, the Brooklyn Nets have carried the swamp stench with them.

This season, though...

Tonight's game could usher in a new era of relevance for the eighth team in a city that hasn't seen a professional basketball title since 1976, when the New York Nets claimed the ABA's final championship over the Denver Nuggets.

2. Daily GIF: It took four preseason games for Knicks fans to fall in love with Immanuel Quickley

Immanuel Quickley, the 25th pick in this year’s draft, has sliced up some terrible defenses this preseason, and looks like a pretty good (albeit early) candidate to outperform where he was chosen.

See how reasonable that sentence is? Shouldn’t his current evaluation just end there?

NOPE! Because he plays for the Knicks, where the great (but slightly trigger-happy) fans need a star in their lives.

On the supporter side, he’s been seamlessly integrated into the underbelly of #KnicksTwitter, which has been cooking up some extremely niche Quickley memes.

On the press side, here’s a sampling of a few recent headlines: 

• New York Post: Knicks sensation Immanuel Quickley may not start right away
• New York Post: Immanuel Quickley is making mock drafts look silly
• Newsday: Knicks rookie Immanuel Quickley can shoot as well as anyone in the NBA
• The Grip: Immanuel Quickley is the next Michael Jordan

3. Trivia time

Despite being supremely ill-equipped to actually win an NBA title, the Nets reached the Finals in 2002, where they were swept by the Lakers.

Who were the top five scorers on that Nets team?

Hint: Vince Carter, who has been Mandela Effect’d onto that team, didn’t join the Nets until 2004.

4. If the NBA is losing so much money, how did Markelle Fultz just get $50 million?

A quick player comparison to start off this embittered section: 

• Player A, 2014-15 through 2016-17: 225 games, 22.8 points, two All-Star games, 5.5 assists, .371 from 3-point. 
• Player B, 2017-18 through 2019-20: 75 games in total, 10.7 points, 4.6 assists, .267 from 3-point.   

Obviously, you would guess Player A would have a much higher career earnings than Player B.

Unfortunately, you would be wrong. 

• Player A is Isaiah Thomas, who is out of the league after having made $33 million.
• Player B is Markelle Fultz, who still might not even have a real career, but signed a contract extension yesterday for three years and $50 million, bringing his total career earnings to $87 million, $12 million more than the number of games he’s played.

There is no justice in this world. And there is no such thing as a rich bust.

Here are some other ludicrous recent contracts handed out to players who have proven absolutely nothing in a league that likes to pretend its hemorrhaging money:

• Luke Kennard, career 9.8 PPG scorer: Four years, $64 million 
• Jonathan Isaac, who won’t play basketball until 2021-22: Four years, $80 million
• Derrick White, career 9.8 PPG scorer: Four years, $73 million
• OG Anunoby, career 7.8 PPG scorer: Four years, $73 million

5. For the first time as commissioner, Adam Silver teases the idea of NBA expansion

Adam Silver, speaking during his preseason media availability on Monday, dropped a manifest destiny on us while saying expansion of the league is a possibility:
 

A couple of notes:

• Not “on the front burner” probably means not for four or five years. 
• The last expansion team was the Charlotte Bobcats (Hornets), who came two years after the OG Hornets (now the Pelicans) moved to New Orleans.
• There would likely be two new teams if and when expansion does come, with one most certainly going to Seattle, writing the wrong of 2008’s move of the Supersonics to Oklahoma City. 
• A couple of places we’d like to see a new team: Austin (though it’ll never happen), San Diego, Baltimore.
• Where it likely ends up: Nashville, Las Vegas, or some place in Florida.

6.  Quick hits

• Entering tonight’s doubleheader, six teams are planning on having limited capacity at home games. 
• Here’s some more James Harden drama we don’t have the energy to get into.
• Adam Silver says the league won’t skip the line on the vaccine. 
• Some notable non-extension players entering their final rookie contract season: John Collins, Frank Ntilikina, Lonzo Ball, Jarrett Allen.

7.  Off the press

• Anthony Davis is coming for the crown [The Ringer]
• New rankings and projections before 2020-21 opening night [ESPN]
• Marcus Smart will keep shooting. But is that what the Celtics need from him? [The Boston Globe]