The Brooklyn Nets and New York Yankees have more similarities than you think.
The obvious one that comes immediately to mind is that their games are carried by the YES Network and streamed on DAZN.
Peel back the layers and you'll see each team with an owner and general manager joined at the hip.
Brian Cashman joined the Yankees organization in 1995 and has served as the GM since 1998.
He first served under George Steinbrenner and is now reporting to the late owner's son, Hal.
The Bronx Bombers currently have a 26-year championship drought.
That dryspell has spanned three managers: Joe Torre, Joe Girardi, and now Aaron Boone.
During New York's post mortem press conference, Hal reinforced his belief in the GM and in fact doubled down with an extension.
The Yankees are a perennial playoff team with lofty expectations from a fan base that expects a championship or bust mentality.
The Brooklyn Nets, on the other hand, are an organization that is constantly searching for an identity and stability. When Sean Marks took over the franchise's front office in 2016, the organization was bereft of draft picks and in payroll hell.
Marks was able to through some creative maneuvering to purchase draft picks, and build a culture that ultimately attracted superstars Kyrie Irving, Kevin Durant and James Harden to the borough.
That superstar era fizzed out before even realizing the benefits as the team failed to advance beyond the second round of the playoffs.
Aside from Pat Riley with the Miami Heat, and Sam Presti with the Oklahoma City Thunder, Marks is the next longest-tenured GM.
The other front office executives have decorated careers, while Marks has yet to prove his philosophy and team building will result in championships.
Joe Tsai inked Marks to an extension in 2022, despite a superstar era falling apart at his feet. The terms of the extension were not made publicly available, but it doesn't appear that he is on hot seat, despite no playoff appearances since 2023 and a largely failed tanking attempt the past two seasons.
So while organizational stability is what created some of the best dynasties of the last hundred years, one has to wonder what kind of blind trust Yankee and Net ownership has in GMs that are flat out not getting the job done.
