Surreal Life

Erving by then had an N.B.A. championship ring, won with Philadelphia in 1983. The sale of Erving to the 76ers guaranteed that the Nets would remain bitterly connected to Philadelphia. The rivalry included one of the weirdest games the Nets — or any team — may have ever played.

On Nov. 9, 1978, the Nets were in Philadelphia when Bernard King, their best player, incurred two technical fouls for protesting a call. Kevin Loughery, his excitable coach, began screaming and he, too, was assessed two technicals, which meant his automatic ejection. But a strange thing happened. The referee Richie Powers gave both King and Loughery a third technical. After taking the free throws, the Sixers went on to win in overtime as Phil Jackson, a part-time Loughery assistant and broadcaster, coached his first N.B.A. game.

A Nets protest was subsequently upheld, and the N.B.A. ordered the game to be resumed at the point in the third quarter when Powers assessed the illegal technicals. Except by the time the resumption occurred on March 23, 1979, — before another scheduled game between the teams in Philadelphia — the Nets had traded Eric Money and Al Skinner to the 76ers for Harvey Catchings and Ralph Simpson.

In the final box score of the suspended game, which the Nets naturally lost, before also dropping the second game, three of the four players — Skinner being the exception — appeared on both sides.

“The craziest thing,” said Turetzky, who was not working that road game but who has scored and seen it all in New Jersey, including Rod Thorn’s defection from the Nets’ front office to Philadelphia’s after Mikhail D. Prokhorov, the Russian tycoon, took over the team in 2010.

That has left the Nets’ personnel matters to the current general manager, Billy King, who formerly had the same title in Philadelphia. King’s decision last season to make a huge gamble on the Nets’ future on the free-agent-to-be Deron Williams could make the Nets, or break them, before they ever turn on the lights in Brooklyn.

Meanwhile, the N.B.A. schedule maker must have a cruel sense of humor. The 76ers will be the opponent Monday night for the final game in New Jersey. Not to be outdone, the Nets have announced that Coleman, Anderson and Morris will be among the former players on hand, and possibly Richardson, too.

Howard Freeman, who now produces a balloon and music festival in North Jersey and considers himself a man of letters, D.H.A. (doctor of hot air), said he was also planning to attend. He wonders if the Nets will give New Jersey fans anything to help them remember 35 years of well-intentioned aspirations turned to ashes.