Brooklyn Nets Owner Left “Embarrassed” After Jalen Brunson Led Knicks to Championship Glory

The Lakers aren't the only NBA franchise going through an uncomfortable run of ownership talk this week. While Bob Iger and Josh Kushner are dealing with the Los Angeles drama after the Buss family agreed to sell its remaining stake, Brooklyn Nets owner Joe Tsai is dealing with a very different kind of discomfort, one that has nothing to do with a sale but with watching his crosstown rivals and star player Jalen Brunson lift a trophy.

According to NetsDaily, Tsai spoke about watching the New York Knicks break a 53-year curse.

"Every year, some team is going to win a championship. So it happens that this year that team is in the same city. It doesn't make us feel very good. It irates our fanbase, and it is embarrassing," Tsai said, per Legion Hoops.

"We had a plan and we're rebuilding, and I think right now we are on a positive trajectory. So it doesn't change my thinking at all," Tsai added.

Brunson helped close out a five-game Finals win over the San Antonio Spurs to end New York's title drought. More than two million fans, reportedly, turned out for the championship parade through Manhattan, all while the Nets were finishing a 20-62 season, the third-worst record in the league.

Tsai Insists the New York Knicks’ Title Won’t Change Brooklyn’s Plan

Rather than treating the Knicks' title as pressure to abandon the rebuild, he's leaning into patience. Betting that a competitive, winning team built the right way will outlast a rival's parade in the city's memory.

It's a stance that puts Tsai at odds with how the Nets have operated in the past. The franchise previously chased instant contention by trading for stars rather than building through the draft.

There's also a business angle. Even as the Knicks are the reigning team in New York, Brooklyn's executives have pointed out that the city's renewed basketball appetite could work in the Nets' favor, too, pulling in casual fans who got swept up in the playoff run and might now be open to following the sport locally, the Nets included.

In the end, Tsai's comments see his team caught between two realities: a rival's championship parade still fresh in the city's memory, and an ownership group insisting its own rebuild is worth the wait.

Like the Lakers' new owners now inheriting a storied franchise mid-transition.Tsai is betting that patience, and not a reaction to what's happening across town, is what eventually gets the Nets back to relevance.