NEW YORK — Every afternoon of a Brooklyn Nets home game, coach Kenny Atkinson walks to work. He considers it “therapy” from the pressures of the job. Wearing his Nets tracksuit and a fresh pair of Nikes, he straps on his backpack, where he keeps his black wingtips. He pulls on a stocking cap, throws his tailored suit over his shoulder, crosses through the front door and descends the stoop of his brownstone home.



Atkinson is the first coach of a major pro team that plays in Brooklyn to live in Brooklyn since 1958 — when Walter Alston managed the Dodgers before they moved to Los Angeles. Like Alston before him, Atkinson walks among Brooklyn’s people because he’s become one of them. The same thing typically happens to the Nets’ players, like the Dodgers before them.



The construction workers laying brick yell down from the scaffolding to say hello. The men and women sipping their cappuccinos in the cafes don’t look up, but...