Brooklyn Nets’ Joe Johnson, On Moving to the Big City
In a sport dominated by the history of its fabled franchises, Johnson was immediately excited to be in on the rare chance to start something new, while bypassing the awkward early stages of an actual expansion team. But still, “It didn’t sink in that I was moving to New York City until I came here to start looking at places.”
It’s a little reassuring that the nightmare of finding a place to live in New York spares no one entirely. Johnson looked at upwards of 30 apartments and had only a few weeks to consider them before settling on the one he liked enough to live in. “It was tough for me. Coming from the South, you get a lot for your money. New York is kind of like the opposite. I made my decision last minute.” He decided on an open-plan, one-floor Tribeca condo as a halfway spot between the Nets’ New Jersey practice facility and their new Brooklyn arena. “I didn’t want to be five minutes from the arena, but forty minutes from practice.” Once decided, he had to go through the familiar process of whittling his mountains of accumulated stuff down to what a city apartment he describes as “cozy” could realistically fit.