Ever since 2014 started, the Nets have been less of a dumpster fire and have been playing like you might expect a team with a $102,308,627 payroll to play. Which is to say, they’ve been winning basketball games. Hey, good for you guys. Meanwhile, the Knicks have remained in dumpster fire territory, with even their wins punctuated by some of the worst basketball in the Western world. Seeing that, Nets CEO/human made entirely of marketing catchphrases Brett Yormark told the Daily News that the team would welcome any unsatisfied Knicks fans at the House That Eminent Domain Built.
His confidence no doubt buoyed by the Nets’ 2014 run that’s moved them all the way to second place in the Atlantic division behind the powerhouse Canadian Toronto Raptors, Yormark told the paper “I think there’s a window of opportunity to convert fans and become the team in New York.” So there you go, fickle and uncommitted basketball fans of New York, the Nets are now publicly lobbying for you to climb aboard the bandwagon while it’s hot and before it empties out following a second round playoff exit. Should you do it?
It’s not for me to say really, but as the official Brokelyn Sports Columnist, the line this blog takes is that jumping ship to the Nets now shows such a stunning lack of character your own mother should disown you and you should be investigated in connection with every unsolved fraud case in the New York metropolitan area. It’s one thing if you’re a Brooklyn native and decided early on, before it was a sure thing that the team would be any good, that this was Brooklyn’s team and you were going to support it. Not that it was the only choice out there for you.
But if you were already a Knicks fan, ditching them now for the Nets is just cowardly. The Knicks are at a low point, and have basically been at one for a decade, but fandom involves pain and suffering, unless you’re a Yankees fan or a completely spineless loser who throws in the towel whenever things get rough. Our team might be a shoddily assembled collection of spare parts around one Hall of Fame talent and our owner might be a dry drunk genetic lottery winner whose meddling has doomed us for another ten years at least and , but fandom is defined by pre-Vatican II canon: No divorce until death.
And besides, aside from those Brooklyn natives who adopted the team immediately, do you really want to align yourself with the black-and-white jersey-clad masses who moved to Brooklyn and declared their allegiance to the Nets out of a combination of a malfunctioning bullshit detector, misplaced civic pride and misguided belief that a team playing in a billion dollar arena constructed with taxpayer money represents Brooklyn’s ethos. No, you don’t want to align yourself with rabble. And besides, they’re gonna be running like rats from a sinking ship when the wreckage from the Garnett/Pierce trade starts raining from the sky. Your life as a Knicks fan is painful right now, but at least you came about that pain honestly.
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