The Nets have to win tonight. Not because they are trying to avoid records (though, longest losing streak of all time is up for grabs, and while we’re at, 0-82), or because Charlotte, despite playing better of late, is a totally beatable team.
The Nets have to win tonight, because I’m absolutely tired of talking about this losing streak. If they can’t do it for themselves, at least do it for the bloggers, and the sports writers out there who just want to move on to covering Tiger Woods’ affairs, or where LeBron James is going to play in 2010.
Never have there been truer words spoken by Chris Douglas-Roberts then what he said at practice yesterday:
“It seems like everybody I talk to … I really just get angrier,” CDR said. “It really doesn’t make me better. It’s just, ‘Okay, keep your head in it. Keep playing. … Whatever you do, stay focused.’ I’m really just tired of hearing it, honestly.”
Preach on, CDR.
Seriously, Yahoo’s Adrian Wojnarowski is a great basketball writer, but it’s a bad sign when he, and other national writers, are following a specific team like the Nets like it’s their beat. It’s even worse when that press coverage is coming in December, and not say, May, or better yet, June. Besides, I can never spell his name right the first time when I’m trying to credit him in our daily link dump.
I preferred the good old days of late October, when the Nets were heading into the 2009-10 season as a bad, yet anonymous, team. The Nets were so vanilla, they weren’t scheduled for a single game on national television. Now, I have to turn on NBC’s Today Show in the mornings and hear about their losing streak as part of their headline news.
This losing streak has gotten so out of hand, ESPN’s Chris Sheridan is utilizing it for some writing exercises reminiscent of J-School. You know – that sights and sounds, “show me, don’t tell me” stuff for all of you aspiring writers out there?
Don’t believe me, check out these two paragraphs from Sheridan on Wednesday night:
I am sitting where no man has ever sat before, typing this sentence while sitting against the back wall of the locker room of an 0-18 NBA team, and I am getting a dirty look from a security guy who doesn’t seem to like the idea of someone hacking away on a laptop inside this den of misery.
On the bright side, that means there’s still someone on the Nets, even if his nickname is Pinkerton, capable of producing a fiery look in his eye.
That’s some deep stuff there – casting the scribe as a character in the story. Capturing dirty looks from a security guard who in reality was probably more interested in what was left on the post-game buffet spread than what some reporter was clacking away about on his laptop.
So there you have it Nets. This is all on your shoulders. You’re tired of it. We’re tired of it too. Just win a damn game tonight, and hopefully all of this negative attention will go away – until you’re stuck on 5 wins for the season and the calendar reads April 1.
