The Brooklyn Nets seem boring. Not to me, and maybe not to any of you—the faithful—but to many. One of the most influential sports writers on the planet, among others, has voiced this very thought. A writer for The New Yorker recently brought up how boring the Nets are during his piece about the Knicks-Rockets game: “For all the flashiness that surrounds their arrival, there is no getting around the fact that, on the court, the Brooklyn Nets are a boring team, playing a boring brand of basketball.” And then, this guy.
They’ve spent the year at or near the bottom of the league in pace, fast break points and turnovers forced—generally three statistical indicators of a sluggish, austere group. At their most effective, they employ a lumbering, anachronistic seven-footer on the offensive end. At their least effective, they fall into an iso-heavy mess of missed jumpers. Their highlights are pedestrian; their dunks are by moderately athletic power forwards. Gerald Green isn’t walking through that door.
But yet, those who think this team is tedious and uninteresting just aren’t looking hard enough. Here are 10 reasons why this team is not boring. (Make sure to leave reasons 11 through infinity in the comments section.)
1) Reggie Evans
Uncle Reggie: the crossroads of kinetic energy and tying someone’s shoes together. Evans is all hustle and annoyance—and it’s a rare treat to watch, so long as he’s on your side. He’ll pop the other team’s biggest guy square in the chest, grab an offensive board, just about fall out of bounds while hopping on one foot, throw the ball back to the other team, recover to contest a three better than anyone else on the team, cause a turnover by running through a passing lane with his hands in the air and getting hit in the back with the ball, miss an open layup on the other end, grab his own rebound, hit Blatche for an uncontested dunk and flash the best grin in the league. This happens pretty much all the time. And we haven’t even mentioned his free throws! Uncle Reggie: the league’s greatest comedian.
