Brooklyn Bounce: The Highs and Lows of Nets Basketball’s Historic First Season in the Borough

The Nets arrival to Brooklyn in 2012 marked the first time since 1957 that the increasingly gentrified borough was home to a professional sports team. Basketball writer Appleman (whose work has appeared in GQ and the New York Times) follows that historic and turbulent inaugural season, which included a mid-season coaching change and stretches when the high-priced, highly talented team underperformed. Despite his constant presence alongside the Nets, Appleman’s insider status is iffy. He offers few revelations outside of what fans can read in the sports pages. And his narrative approach is inconsistent to the point of being maddening—a sudden season summary of the Nets’ battles with the crosstown Knicks; first-person diversions; an uninspiring summary of the Nets’ mediocre history. Appleman wonders how the team, transplanted from New Jersey, is supposed to mesh with Brooklyn’s changing reputation. That larger cultural theme, along with others that an author can build a terrific book around, barely get examined as the story sputters into a series of well-reported, though now stale, game recaps. Surprisingly, there is little of substance concerning the key elements or players—Russian owner Mikhail Prokhorov, minority celebrity owner Jay-Z, community opposition—that figured heavily in the Nets’ season. Photos not seen by PW. (Feb.)