EL SEGUNDO, Calif. -- It'll be the Los Angeles Lakers' home floor, but for most of the New Jersey Nets, they'll feel right at home playing the NBA Finals at the Staples Center.

	Keith Van Horn, like most of the Nets, are glad to be back in California.

Just about everyone on the Nets' roster has a California connection. Seven players -- Jason Kidd, Keith Van Horn, Lucious Harris, Richard Jefferson, Jason Collins, Brian Scalabrine and non-playoff roster guard Brandon Armstrong -- were born in California, five in the Los Angeles area. Five Nets played their high school ball in California, and that doesn't include head coach Byron Scott, who grew up in Inglewood not far from the old Great Western Forum.

"We've got a lot of California players," Nets guard Lucious Harris said, "so it's kind of a homecoming for almost everybody on the team."

After the Nets won only 26 games in 2000-01, general manager Rod Thorn overhauled the roster via trade, free agency and draft. With so many new faces in New Jersey's camp, building team chemistry would have normally been a problem, but the plethora of West Coasters quickly helped bring the Nets together, according to Jefferson.

"We were basically thrown together, but we have a lot in common," Jefferson said. "We have a lot of similar interests and I think that's helped us this year when things got tough."

"There's a Pac-10 connection, too," said Collins, the Stanford alum who won a California state title at North Hollywood's Harvard-Westlake High. "(During the college hoops season), we were always talking about whose team was going to do well. We knew that Washington, Todd MacCulloch's team, was always going to lose, so the real battle was between Cal (Kidd), Stanford, USC (Scalabrine) and Arizona (Jefferson)."

Like Collins, Van Horn, who was born in Fullerton and played his high school ball in Diamond Bar, grew up hating the Celtics during the Lakers' "Showtime" era in the mid-80s.

"It's hard to believe that I spent so many years growing up watching the Lakers play, watching these playoff games, and now I'm going against them," Van Horn said. "I couldn't have asked for a better script."

Collins could.

	“	I wish we were playing in the Forum. But it'll be fun trying to beat them on their homecourt. ”
		— Jason Collins

"I wish we were playing in the Forum," he said. "But it'll be fun trying to beat them on their homecourt."

Harris, who starred at L.A.'s Cleveland High and Long Beach State, planned to get his hands on as many as 40 tickets for friends and family for Wednesday night's series opener. He, like so many of the Nets' West Coast transplants, savored the sunny and mid-70-degree weather.

"Just look outside," Harris said. "Living back east, there's snow on the ground (in the winter). It's nice, but I just don't like the snow."

Collins concurred. "Spring time in Jersey is really nice, but that cold in the winter -- waking up when it's consistently 30 degrees -- that's a change," he said.

Scalabrine, who was born in Long Beach, also relished the SoCal sun. But that wasn't at the top of his list when asked what he missed most about California.

"I miss," said Scalabrine somewhat tongue-in-cheekly while a female member of the L.A. media caught his eye, "the women."

Joe Lago is the NBA editor for ESPN.com.