Change the logo, name, colors and location of what was a historically underachieving franchise, and you always get the same thing in year one – a fantasy that all the pain of the past few years will be erased, and that invisible switch will be flipped the second that ground is broken for the new venue.

And then, most of the time, reality comes crashing down harder than Tim Duncan’s dunk over Serge Ibaka during the Spurs home opener on Thursday night. That’s usually why it’s called a fantasy.

But in the case of the new-look Brooklyn Nets, who have finally ended what was, for the most part, a miserable 35 year NBA residency period in New Jersey, people who have had high expectations for them going back to the moment they locked up one of the league’s elite point guards in Deron Williams this summer will not be asked if they also believed in Bigfoot at season’s end.

Once the Nets were able to retain Williams, Gerald Wallace, Kris Humphries and Brook Lopez, and also acquire Joe Johnson during the offseason, they established one of the more formidable starting lineups in the Eastern Conference. Second year man Marshon Brooks, whose name was thrown into essentially every trade rumor the team was involved in the past few months, has the potential to make up for the lack of bench depth similar to the way James Harden did for the Oklahoma City Thunder the past few seasons.

Only one thing matters in the Empire State, though. Will they be better than a Knicks team who has suddenly resurged the last two seasons by making back-to-back postseason appearances following a six year playoff absence?

Could a team that went 22-44 last year – not to mention a mind-blowing 12-70 two years prior – possibly take control of a town that saw its team finish with the seventh best record in the conference last season?

Yes. They can and they will in 2012-2013.

This wouldn’t have been the case had the Knicks actually made upgrades this offseason. While the Nets went out and got a star in Johnson and retained their more than solid core filled with both youth and veteran leadership, the Knicks for some reason decided to make additions that would literally make them the oldest team in NBA history. Stamina will not be their best friend, to say the least.

Given the terrible reputation the Knicks front office has earned over the last decade or so, it’s hard to imagine that their signings of 38-year-old Rasheed Wallace off the street, 39-year-old Jason Kidd, 38-year-old Marcus Camby, 35-year-old Argentinian Pablo Prigioni and 40-year-old Kurt Thomas will end up looking like genius moves throughout the year.

When it isn’t about bringing in a bunch of guys who most New Yorkers didn’t even know were still playing – or trying to get back into the league in the case of Wallace – there are three other glaring issues taking place at Madison Square Garden.

You may or may not have heard of this one player named Jeremy Lin last spring. He sort of took the league, and the world, for that matter, by storm. Linsanity had its run and ended well before the 2011-2012 season did, but losing Lin in restricted free agency to his previous team, the Houston Rockets still has Knicks fans wondering why their ownership group hates them.

Then there’s Amar’e Stoudemire, who is expected to miss at least six weeks to begin the season with yet another injury. Seems as though he’s spent almost half of his Knicks career on the bench with some sort of ailment – even self-inflicted ones like the infamous punching of the fire extinguisher door against Miami during last year’s playoffs. Stoudemire’s had more than his fair share of ups and downs on the court as well during his time in a Knicks uniform, but the team is certainly much better off with him than without him.

Finally, there is Carmelo Anthony. Despite being a flat-out superstar who can get his basically whenever he chooses to do so, he’s been a major source of stress since joining the Knicks a season and a half ago. Anthony tends to murder ball movement the moment he touches it, and even though he claimed on media day that he’s willing to sacrifice his scoring for the sake and benefit of the team, we have no other choice than to believe it when we see it.

The Knicks will still be a solid team in all likelihood, but their combination of unanswered questions along with multiple head-scratching signings will not allow them to be the alpha dog in New York when there’s a Nets team in Brooklyn that’s as hungry and as talented as they’ve been in a long time.

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It’s been 35 years since the Nets departed the media giant that is New York and bolted next door for little brother New Jersey. However, even after a three and a half decade-long absence from the Empire State, they still understand good and well upon their return that the people of Brooklyn won’t tolerate the losing that infamously defined the franchise for the majority of their time across the Hudson.

The ensuing result is what we’ve witnessed over the past week – an organization that gave Deron Williams, its perennial All Star point guard, virtually no other choice than to agree to re-sign long-term after first convincing Gerald Wallace to do exactly the same, and then used basically all of its young assets to acquire Atlanta Hawks shooting guard Joe Johnson.

In fact, Williams confirmed last Friday that the transaction that landed Johnson in Brooklyn was the final deciding factor that persuaded him to ultimately agree to a five year, $98 million deal with the Nets at the last minute, as opposed to signing with his hometown Dallas Mavericks, who were his only other option.

“I was really close to going to Dallas,” said Williams. “I actually thought that’s where I was going to go. I had the meetings and it kind of changed my mind because once I got out of the meeting with Dallas and saw the way they were going and the team they were putting out there and I saw that we just made a trade for Joe Johnson and I felt like that team for a longer time would be the better team.

“Joe got me over the hump. I’ve never played with anybody like him, a guy on the wing that can get his own shot and also get me involved and is a great defender. We could be one of the top backcourts in the NBA for sure.”

This is exactly what owner Mikhail Prokhorov envisioned when he bought majority stake in the Nets back in September of 2009 and provided nearly half of the funds for the Barclays Center project that would make Brooklyn their new home.

While many of their diehard fans initially refused to look at the purchase as anything more than another investment for a Russian billionaire who only aspired to become even wealthier in the long run, Prokhorov has continued to open his wallet in hopes of building a championship-contending team for years to come.

“For us, it’s very important they [Nets fans] trust in us,” he told reporters back in April at the Barclays Center construction site. “And I’ll do my best. I’m very committed.”

When asked later about the job statuses of both Nets general manager Billy King and head coach Avery Johnson, Prokhorov continued to express a great deal of support for them despite the team’s atrocious 46-102 overall record over the past two seasons since the two joined the organization back in 2010.

“I think Billy and Avery, they are doing great job,” Prokhorov said. “We have a common view, not only on the day-to-day routine but on our strategic goal. Just to have a championship team we need to be global view, strategic view and you need to have the common knowledge of how to reach this.”

“So from my point of view, we have a great team spirit and we need a little bit of luck, because the team is very professional, and I hope next season we’ll be much, much better than the previous two,” he added.

A severe lack of talent more than plagued King and Johnson during their time in Newark. Now that the franchise enters a new era in its history and will spend an exorbitant sum of money to bring in a trio that has combined for a total of nine All Star appearances in Williams, Johnson and Wallace, King and Johnson suddenly believe that if they’re able to add a few solid complementary pieces – or possibly even Dwight Howard – they can make their way back to the Finals.

With King as G.M., the 2000-2001 Philadelphia 76ers made it as far as the NBA Finals before falling to the Los Angeles Lakers and their all-time great duo of Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal. His tenure in Philly lasted almost nine seasons.

Meanwhile, the climax of Johnson’s nearly four-year run as Mavericks coach was the 2005-2006 season, when he led them to the Finals before losing four straight to the Miami Heat after winning the first two games of the series.

Johnson did win a title in 1999 during his playing days with the San Antonio Spurs, but that doesn’t mean that he isn’t just as hungry as Williams, Johnson and Wallace, who are still ring-less.

It appears as though when you mix a couple of years of patience by Prokhorov, King and Johnson, the formulation of what will inevitably be referred to as a ‘Big Three,’ and a relocation to the enormous market that is New York City, this is what you get: the Nets with a realistic ambition of reaching the Finals for the first time since their glory years of 2002 and 2003.

To the Nets fans and the borough of Brooklyn – which has been wrongfully deprived of a major sports franchise since the Dodgers flew 3,000 miles to Los Angeles 55 years ago – welcome back.

Image Courtesy of   Brooklyn Nets

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