52 jersey numbers have wandered through the Nets’ history since the franchise began in 1967 as the New Jersey Americans, a lineage that has carried the team from ABA roots to its current Brooklyn identity. Jersey No. 22 stands out, worn by 31 players over the years, with Ed Manning as the ninth to don it during the Nets era. His one-season stint in 1974-75 capped a career that zigzagged through the Bullets, Bulls, Trail Blazers and Carolina Cougars before landing in New York.

Ed Manning entered the league as the 80th pick in 1967 by the Baltimore Bullets after a standout run at Jackson State. He played for several franchises across leagues, ultimately wearing No. 22 for the Nets, averaging 3.4 points and 3.0 rebounds per game in that brief Nets chapter. His move to the Indiana Pacers in 1975 ended his Nets chapter, a reminder of how fluid rosters were in that era. All stats courtesy of Basketball Reference.

The Brooklyn Nets’ jersey-number lore runs deep, tracing a path from the ABA’s New Jersey Americans to the modern Brooklyn Nets. No. 22 sits as the 23rd of 52 digits worn across the franchise’s 1967 origin and more than six decades of rosters, a tally kept by Nets Wire to map every player who ever donned the number. The No. 22 chapter features 31 players, with the Nets era’s seventh wearer being Jim Chones. That span links two basketball epochs—ABA roots and Nets’ NBA evolution—through a single digit that stitched together New Jersey, New York, and Brooklyn rosters across decades.

Chones, a Marquette alum, was the No. 22 that bridged eras: after signing with New York in the ABA, the 1973 NBA Draft sent him to the Los Angeles Lakers as the 31st pick, before he moved to the Carolina Cougars in 1973. Nets Wire’s jersey-history project keeps tracing how a single number threads through franchise identity, preserving a throughline as rosters and cities transformed along the Nets’ journey from ABA founding to Brooklyn’s modern era.