Out of all of my relationships with sports teams these days, my love of the New Jersey Nets has been the hardest recently. As their move to Brooklyn gets closer, I've found a duality in my fandom. One side of me rooting for them like I always have while another side is them wishing them ill.
It was announced that the apple of the Nets eye, Dwight Howard decided to stay in Orlando for the another season. While I was sad, the dark side of me was LMAO. The Nets then went into panic mode, and made a horrible trade for a good player in Gerald Wallace (SMH).
Nothing has seemed to go right since the Nets announced the move 8 years ago. They went from going to NBA Finals 2 years in a row, to losing in the Eastern Conference Finals, to losing in the 2nd round of the of the playoffs, to being out of the playoffs altogether after nearly a decade of great Nets teams, to one of the worst teams ever in the history of the NBA.
But all along former Nets majority owner (now minority owner) Bruce Ratner, minority owner Jay-Z, current majority Mikhail Prokhorov, and CEO Brett Yormark said Brooklyn will be better, but I don't see it. They are promoting flash over substance. They'll talk about their global marketing plans, The Barclays Center, Jay-Z, Prokhorov, how attractive Brooklyn is, any and everything else but the actual team playing. But no matter how much PR or marketing they do, the Nets are just plain ugly in the win and loss column. It will take a little more than cosmetic surgery and window dress to fix them.
They know they need star power to even make a dent in the Knicks domain. But they also forgot that people like winners (even potential free agent
superstars), and the Nets haven't been winners in 5 years. The Nets are 15-29 while the Magic are 28-16, why would Howard want to leave?
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