Ready to watch the Nets? If you’re Grantland’s Zach Lowe, it’s only if a Nuggets-Hornets game is the only other one on.
Lowe did his annual “League Pass Rankings,” ranking the Nets 28th out of the 30 NBA teams, largely because of YES Network’s flawless broadcasting team:
Ian Eagle is a god, dropping deadpan gold and fake-feuding with Mike Fratello. The czar brings hoops expertise, dry humor, and delightfully bad stick-figure telestrations of upcoming opponents Eagle deciphers in a warped NBA version of Pictionary — one of the best running gags in broadcast sports. The herringbone court with minimalist black-and-white trim — now with subway-tile-style baseline font! — is a masterpiece.
The team ranked a perfect 10 on the “League Pass Minutiae” score, but only finished with a combined 23 points out of 50, meaning The Bird, the Czar, and the herringbone make up about half the reason to watch this team. Hard to argue that.
The Hornets (20 points) ranked dead last, with the Nuggets (21 points) right ahead.
The other categories Lowe ranked teams on: “Playoffs/Zeitgeist”, “Individual Player Appeal,” “Hoops Style,” and “Unintentional Comedy Scale.” The Nets aren’t very funny, Lowe notes, partially since Brook Lopez doesn’t go to Comic Con anymore — which we exclusively reported last week.
As for the other New York team, the Knicks ranked 16th. The top team? Your reigning champion Golden State Warriors, who doubled Brooklyn’s score with a 46 out of 50.
Grantland — The Annual NBA League Pass Rankings, Part 1
