Jon Spoelstra, former Nets president.

Jon Spoelstra, former Nets president. Credit: Handout

When Jon Spoelstra was the Nets' president in the 1990s, he had to use every ounce of his creativity to promote a team whose distinction was that forward Chris Morris defiantly refused to tie his shoelaces. Still, he succeeded, drawing 16 crowds of at least 20,000 to the Meadowlands in 1994-95, when the Nets went 30-52.

"We did almost everything differently than the rest of the league did. We had to adapt to the marketplace,'' he said by phone from Maui, where he has a home. "That experience I had in New Jersey was really exhilarating.''

He never had to try so hard to sell basketball to his son, Erik, who attended every Portland home game when he was in ninth grade and Jon was a Trail Blazers executive. "I looked at it as a bonding thing. I never imagined he would become an NBA coach,'' said the elder Spoelstra, who used his Nets experience to write the 1997 book, "Ice to the Eskimos: How to Market a Product Nobody Wants.''

Erik played for the University of Portland, then went to Germany to play professionally. On his way home one season, he stopped in his father's Nets office and said his life's mission was to coach. "I told him, 'If you had some kind of addiction, I could send you to rehab. With wanting to be a coach, I can't help you,' '' he said. "Every coach I've known was so possessed.''

Now here is Erik, a two-time NBA champion, coaching against the franchise his dad once proudly led (and left in 1995, discouraged about the type of player his talent people were drafting and figuring he had done all he could). Jon planned his travel back to the mainland Friday so he didn't have to miss a game on TV.

He has no mixed feelings while watching the Heat and the Nets. "It's not even a close feeling. It's all one way,'' the loyal father said, adding that Erik's analytical gifts were obvious years ago when he still was the Heat's video coordinator. "We would have conversations about the game and it was clear that I was talking checkers and he was talking chess,'' Jon said.

Jon had his own skills. When he came up with a plan to change the Nets' nickname to Swamp Dragons, NBA commissioner David Stern bought in (after initially calling it Spoelstra's most stupid idea ever). Lakers owner Jerry Buss called the plan "an act of genius.'' NBA owners voted 27-1 to approve it. The only dissenting vote came from the Nets, who got cold feet.

Maybe the Swamp Dragons would have been so successful, they never would have left New Jersey. As it is, the marketing guru thinks they have struck gold at Barclays Center.

"New Jersey is a conglomerate of cities. Brooklyn is a borough and it has its own identity,'' Spoelstra said, recalling that his Nets staff included a young Brett Yormark, now the Nets' CEO. Spoelstra did extensive Brooklyn research for his novel "Red Chaser,'' which revolves around the 1950s Dodgers and the Cold War.

Of the Nets, he said, "I feel bad that they moved, but I also knew Brooklyn would be a grand slam home run.''

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