The Nets can’t catch a break.
I know what you’re thinking: Crummy, haven’t the Nets been playing their best basketball of the season recently? Didn’t they look great before falling short in overtime to the Toronto Raptors on Friday and great again when they beat the Clippers on Monday?
Yes, person asking a rhetorical question of a chain-smoking pigeon, that’s exactly what I mean. The Nets are getting good at precisely the wrong time.
For all intents and purposes, Brooklyn’s season has been a fiery train-wreck that appeared to officially go off the rails when the team won only three games in the entire month of January. Now, all of a sudden, the Nets have Deron Williams back, Brook Lopez in a groove, and some reason for the front office to hope that the squad could finish the season respectably by making the playoffs and quietly shuffling off with a first- or second-round exit.
I’m here to tell Nets general manager Billy King: Don’t take the bait again, buddy.
For months now, King has been exploring trade options for D-Will and Lopez that could potentially restore some of the draft picks he’s spent years throwing away like bread bowls behind the Panera on Adams Street.
The only way the Nets have any hope of building a winning future over the next five years is if King can unload Lopez and Williams and get some picks or some young talent. Take it from me. There’s no point in delaying the inevitable. It’ll come to a head when your wife’s brother hacks off your wing in a dispute over a pizza crust, and your divorce lawyer has to demand payment for your prosthetic wing as part of the settlement.
As a Nets fan, I gotta admit that it was a joy to watch from the rafters at Barclays as our boys took down the Clips on Monday. Lopez was in vintage Big Lug mode, just wobbling around until getting the ball and effortlessly dropping it in the basket. Jarrett Jack looked like the best backup point guard in the league, which would give the Nets a valuable weapon in a playoff series.
But no, Brooklyn faithful, we have to resist the urge to double down on this feeling. The Nets are a bigger tease than my buddy Carl’s sister, Candace, who was always sending vibes my way when we were chicks, only to tell me I smelled like a trash compactor when I tried to make a move on her years later at a family barbecue.
The time has come to part ways with the core of the inaugural Brooklyn team. It’s been a somewhat interesting ride with D-Will, Big Lug, and Joe Johnson, but not a particularly successful one. If any of these guys can score us some first-round picks for the next couple years, that should be our priority. I keep coming back to a phrase I’ve told myself time and again after waking up in a storm drain with an empty bottle of Thunderbird:
It’s time for a fresh start in Brooklyn.
Speaking of which, spare a buck for a beer?
