A Beginner’s Guide to the Nets: 50 Easy Steps to Becoming a Better Brooklyn Fan
And then be realistic about the bad stuff, too, like…
47. Being fleeced out of previously unmentioned $4.8 million dollar fee upon joining the NBA for “invading” the New York market is not the sort of newbie bullshit that would ever be tolerated under the ownership of scary rich (and at least a little bit scary otherwise) Russian oligarch Mikhail Prokerov, who has means far beyond humiliation on a Jay-Z dis track to discourage any similar punking of the Brooklyn Nets.
48. Helmet-haired college coach John Calipari flamed out hard in his only NBA head-coaching stint, leading the Nets from 1996 to the part of 1999 before he went 3-17 and got fired. This, of course, threw him back in to college basketball where his tremendously successful focus on loaning one-year-and-done stars sort of exposed the whole system as flawed and cynical, which sucks some fun out of the whole thing.
49. One of the most boring and overmatched multiple-year title contenders ever, Jason Kidd’s Nets ended up exemplifying the weakness of the Eastern Conference when Kobe and Shaq were smirking their way to three easy titles. (And they were a distant second in the underdog fun quotient to Allen Iverson’s Sixers.) As Kidd bricked threes and ground out wins at the free-throw line, the team had, at best, a way-too-Jersey anti-glamor, which at the time failed to even excite Jersey-ans normally eager for any kind of validation whatsoever. Over a decade later, Kidd still haunts the league, now bringing his gassed-out veteran leadership and grody arrest history to the rival Knicks.
50. Finally, don’t be afraid to cry should your beloved Nets ever win the title…