Brooklyn bounce
"Even before they'd ever played a game, the Brooklyn Nets were outselling the New York Knicks in team apparel and merchandise. In their first season they ranked fourth in league-wide jersey sales, indicative of the trendy appeal and broad fan base. When the Nets played their first game at Barclays Center in downtown Brooklyn in the fall of 2012, they succeeded in bringing professional sports back to Brooklyn for the first time since the Dodgers abandoned the borough in 1957. Now Brooklyn Bounce chronicles the historic first season, full of highs and lows--plenty of them entirely unexpected. Jake Appleman takes us inside the locker room, combining vignettes and interviews from the team's transition from the New Jersey swamp to gentrified Brooklyn, to an opening night delayed by Hurricane Sandy, to an epic seven-game playoff showdown with the Chicago Bulls. The Nets were the game's foremost paradox in 2013, a team that managed to be the most improved in the NBA, but also consistently disappointed. What made them interesting wasn't their style of play or even their unique collection of personalities; it was their constant state of re-invention and their evolving relationship with their new home: as the Barclays crowds would chant it, BROOOOOOK-LYN!"--