It's almost indisputable that Jason Kidd's most productive years were with the New Jersey Nets. The same can be said for Vince Carter.
When Kidd was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2018, he was enshrined as a Maverick. Yes, the team that drafted him and he won a championship with as a secondary star.
Carter will also be going into the Hall with the team that drafted him, the Toronto Raptors.
When Air Canada left Toronto, there was much vitriol from the Raptors fan base.
So why is it that two all-time Nets will be memorialized in Springfield, Massachusetts, with another franchise?
It likely has a lot to do with the Nets running away from their history. Upon the move to New Jersey, the Nets did a terrible job of honoring the Long Island era of basketball. The same can be said upon the move to Brooklyn, when the Nets tried to treat the relocation as a rebranding of a new franchise.
As the years go on, and the Nets are further and further away from those back-to-back NBA finals berths. Some of the great moments and legends of those years are being forgotten about.
The Nets public relations staff has done an extremely underwhelming job of welcoming in former alumni and spearheading initiatives to honor the team's history.
The Nets have finally reportedly decided to retire Vince Carter's number, which is something that is years and years overdue.
So while there may be some some hard feelings from Nets fans that wanted to see Carter and Kidd with New Jersey Nets gear in Springfield, the organization is as much to blame as anyone. Sadly, there is not a single player, coach or executive enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame as a Net.
