Despite black having been their signature, somehow, on this day, in 2013, Barclays Center more seemed like a real-life haunted house than usual.

Black curtains partitioned off the majority of the arena. The bright lights beamed down upon center court, but instead of the familiar sound of sneakers squeaking, the only thing audible was a voice echoing throughout the hollow building.

At the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues in Brooklyn, Kevin Garnett declared the Nets to be ready to embark on a new journey. With Paul Pierce at his side and Deron Williams and Joe Johnson leading the way, the Nets were heading to King’s Landing.

LeBron’s throne was supposed to be theirs.

Just one year prior, James and his Miami Heat ended Garnett’s Celtics and their days of contending. For Garnett, the move to Brooklyn was about payback.

Three years earlier and five miles north, the New York Knicks had similar aspirations.

The chords of Skylar Grey pierced through a packed Madison Square Garden.

After being spurned by James, the months of anticipation had ceased. Carmelo Anthony was finally wearing orange and blue.

With an orange headband and his sights set on becoming the next Bernard King, Anthony hung 27 points on the Milwaukee Bucks and reminded everyone who he was.

Back then, many believed it would be he and Amar’e Stoudemire who would give James and the Miami Thrice fits.

For both the Knicks and Nets, the basketball gods had other plans.

Now, with the 2018-19 season upon us — more than seven years after Anthony became a Knick and four since Garnett took residence in Brooklyn — the Knicks and Nets find themselves still striving for greatness. During that span, each team has won just one playoff series.

It’s been a circuitous journey — from rebuilding to swinging to the fences and back to rebuilding — but it seems that both Scott Perry and Sean Marks have each learned one of the NBA’s toughest lessons: there’s no shortcut to building a contender.

Appropriately, when the 2019 NBA draft rolls around, it will be the first time the Knicks and Nets exercise their own first-round picks in the same draft in six years. The ill-fated Garnett trade cost the Nets their own picks in 2018, 2017, 2016 and 2014. The Knicks, meanwhile, sacrificed their own 2016 and 2014 picks in the Anthony trade.

Only time will tell whether Markelle Fultz (who the Celtics would turn into Jayson Tatum), Collin Sexton and Jakob Poeltl end up fulfilling their immense promise, but they join Jaylen Brown, Dario Saric and James Young as players who were drafted using the aforementioned traded picks.

Hindsight is 20-20, but while the moves were mostly celebrated at the time, history has since proven them to have ultimately been futile swings for the fences.

Culturally, we’ve become smarter. After seeing traded draft picks and overly-lucrative contracts hamper a team’s ability to pull itself up from its bootstraps, we’ve developed the habit of scrutinizing every move made by most executives, especially ones that are fairly new on the job.

Those are among the reasons why Knicks president Steve Mills has gone on the record as saying the team’s priority has been getting its own house in order.

Sure, the lack of positional specialization and the trod toward a “position-less” game means one player can transform the fortunes of a franchise overnight. But the player of today, one who worries about his Q score and marketability as a “winner” won’t entrust his legacy to a front office that hasn’t shown at least an ability to get some important things correct.

Above all, that was probably the most valuable lesson Mills learned while Phil Jackson was in control. If nothing else, not scoring meetings with LaMarcus Aldridge and Kevin Durant was at least good for perspective.

Today, there’s no reason to believe that Kyrie Irving, Jimmy Butler or any of the other members of the star-studded NBA free agency class of 2019 would think any differently than we now know Aldridge and Durant to have. So as the Knicks and Nets each share the headlines over which team will have a better shot at landing a whale next summer, this season, it’s imperative to prove respectability and prudence.

From the locker room culture, to on-court performance, Perry and Marks are very much continuing to lay the foundation for what they hope to be fruitful tenures. Enes Kanter and Spencer Dinwiddie can carry on their childish and meaningless feud on social media, but their teams will each wake up in an Eastern Conference that finds them to be lightyears behind the Celtics and Philadelphia 76ers and nowhere near the Milwaukee Bucks or Toronto Raptors.

What each team does have going for it right now, however, is legitimate optimism.

Among the NBA and agent communities, Perry has brought a respect and credibility to Penn Plaza that Donnie Walsh had. His lack of ego and upfront demeanor has scored him points with just about everyone, but it’s his fingerprints on the scores of things that went right in Detroit that have him regarded most positively.

In Brooklyn, the same rings true of Marks. While not having a track record like Perry’s, Marks learned valuable lessons from R.C. Buford and Gregg Popovich — no shortcuts.

Ironically, despite not owning his own first-round pick since taking over for the Nets, under the directive of Marks, the Nets have been one the heaviest represented franchises at the NBA’s annual draft combine in Chicago. The event is an opportunity for front offices to get to know incoming prospects, but also to find out what other front offices are up to.

This past May, when Marks rounded up his dozen or so troops in Chicago for the team’s annual combine dinner at Sunda New Asian restaurant, just as they’d done years prior, they’d discussed what they’d found. Some prospects tickled their fancy, but more important were the face-to-face conversations that Marks had with agents and other front office representatives.

To this point, if there is any story to be told of Marks, it’s that he’s always informed on what other teams across the league are thinking and doing. His proactivity is what enabled the Nets to land productive players, even without a bevy of assets.

One holdover from Billy King’s staff calls the difference between the two night and day. King always sought the grand slam. Marks is content with hitting singles.

Sounds an awful lot like his counterpart, Perry.

With a jewel from the 2015 draft and the potential to clear truckloads of cap space, both general managers will be looking for at least a bases-clearing triple next summer.

The NBA expects the cap to rise about six percent, from $102 million this season to about $109 million for 2019-20.

As of now, the Knicks have about $56 million committed. That figure doesn’t include the amount that’ll be needed to re-sign Kristaps Porzingis, but it does include commitments to both Joakim Noah ($19 million) and Courtney Lee ($12.7 million) — salaries that the front office at Madison Square Garden is confident they’ll be able to remove. While it will take some work, the Knicks have a legitimate shot at clearing the cap space necessary to make competitive offers to two max-level free agents.

In Brooklyn, the situation is similar. The club has just $17 million guaranteed for next season, but Allen Crabbe holds an $18 million player option which he’s likely to exercise. D’Angelo Russell and Rondae Hollis-Jefferson will each be eligible for extensions, while Jarrett Allen and Caris LeVert have team options which will total a combined $5 million. In other words, it’s safe to assume the Nets will have $40 million in salary commitments before re-signing either Russell or Hollis-Jefferson.

Despite that fact, Marks too can manufacture the cap space needed to be a major player in free agency.

At this point, it’s fair to assume that it’s the most likely route that either franchise could take to truly becoming a contender. But unlike regimes past, neither front office is putting all of their eggs in that basket, especially in a weakened Eastern Conference that will see James’ reign end after eight consecutive trips to the NBA Finals.

Much like in the past, both the Knicks and Nets find themselves looking for a savior. The difference this time, however, is that each team has foundational pieces in place and front offices who appear to be patient enough to see a true rebuild through.

Yes, Garnett long ago declared his team to be a contender while Anthony, among the Eastern Conference’s top dogs, was leapfrogged by Paul George. Now, with each of the future Hall of Famers having moved on, from afar, neither of their former teams seemed to have come all that far. Unlike in the past, though, to their credit, neither Perry nor Marks has attempted to build their foundation while sacrificing their futures. It’s a fine line magnificently walked by Danny Ainge, and the Celtics appear to be headed in the right direction.

Armed with the potential to create cap space, young cores with appreciable talent, draft picks and low expectations, the Knicks and Nets may be on their way to competing for more than likes and retweets.

Separated by just five miles, the franchises more or less enter the season having found themselves in similar predicaments. More importantly, though, and fortunately for them, they’ve employed similar methods.

As we head toward the commencement of the 2018-19 NBA season, indeed, the Knicks and the Nets are in the same place.

But for a change, in the long run, that doesn’t actually seem like a bad thing for them.

(Photo by Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Getty Images)