1992–93 New Jersey Nets season

The 1992–93 NBA season was the 26th season for the New Jersey Nets in the National Basketball Association, and their 17th season in East Rutherford, New Jersey. During the off-season, the Nets hired Chuck Daly as their new head coach; Daly led the Detroit Pistons to two straight championships in 1989 and 1990. The team also acquired Rumeal Robinson from the Atlanta Hawks, acquired Jayson Williams from the Philadelphia 76ers, and signed free agents Chucky Brown and Rick Mahorn.

Under Daly, the Nets continued to improve holding a 30–21 record at the All-Star break. However, they would lose second-year star Kenny Anderson for the remainder of the regular season to a wrist injury after 55 games. At mid-season, the team signed free agents, former All-Star guard Maurice Cheeks, and former All-Star forward Bernard King. Despite losing ten of their final eleven games of the season, the Nets finished in third place in the Atlantic Division with a 43–39 record, their first winning season since 1983–84, and earned the #6 seed in the Eastern Conference.

Dražen Petrović led the team in scoring averaging 22.3 points per game, while Derrick Coleman averaged 20.7 points, 11.2 rebounds and 1.7 blocks per game, and Anderson showed improvement becoming the Nets' starting point guard, as he provided the team with 16.9 points, 8.2 assists and 1.7 steals per game. In addition, Chris Morris contributed 14.1 points, 5.9 rebounds and 1.9 steals per game, while Sam Bowie provided with 9.1 points, 7.0 rebounds and 1.6 blocks per game, and Robinson contributed 8.4 points, 4.0 assists and 1.2 steals per game.

Petrović and Coleman were both named to the All-NBA Third Team, while Anderson finished in third place in Most Improved Player voting, with Coleman and Petrović both finishing in eighth and tied in eleventh place respectively, and Daly finished in fifth place in Coach of the Year voting.

The Nets qualified for the 1993 NBA playoffs, and faced off against the Cleveland Cavaliers for the second consecutive year. However, without Anderson, and with Robinson as the starting point guard in his absence, the Nets would lose to the Cavaliers in five games.

Following the season, tragedy struck as Petrović was killed in a car accident in Germany at the age of 28 on June 7, 1993; Petrović was a passenger in a car driven by his girlfriend, which lost control and crashed head-on into a truck on a rain-drenched highway near Munich, Germany. His girlfriend, Klara Szalantzy, 23, and another passenger, Hilal Haene, 53, were both seriously injured. Shortly before his death, Petrović last played for the Croatian national basketball team in the European Championships in Wroclaw, Poland. The Nets retired his #3 jersey, as Petrović would later on be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame posthumously.

Also following the season, Bowie was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers, while Chris Dudley signed as a free agent with the Portland Trail Blazers, Brown signed with the Dallas Mavericks, and King and Cheeks both retired.