“If we win one tomorrow, that’s called a winning streak”

Writers note: I’m playing though pain. My daughter has been in daycare for a few months, which means my daughter has been sick for a few months. And as a result I am sick. And also, I had to finish off a bottle of wine, because we just got a Non-Denominational Holiday tree, and there really is no better way to water it, than with a wine bottle. I also had a few beers.

They’re tanking.

I think. Who even knows? Maybe I played myself. Honest to God, I really thought they had a run at an improbable 8 seed in them. And that run would surely have been a sneak preview at what might have been in store for the following years. But Caris LeVert went down and the Nets immediately began losing and losing in the most painful of ways.

It wasn’t the kind of losing that you can eventually accept. If they were losing each game by 25 points, I could adapt to that, and understand that this team has no chance of ever winning. I could then calibrate my expectations accordingly. But that’s not what happens, because this team (almost) always has a double digit lead at one point in the second half. They’re always in a position where you would expect them to win. And yet, with a reliability that the MTA riders would kill for, the Nets damn near always manage to let the other team back into the game, to wind up losing in the final minute of the game. Even if you account for the fact that young teams struggle with learning how to win, there are so many 50/50 games that could have gone either way, that it seems impossible that the Nets would lose as much as they had. If you flip a coin that many times, you wouldn’t get tails every single time-

Waaaaaaait a minute. They’re tanking, aren’t they? Goddamn it, they’re tanking, right? They’ve got their own first round pick. It’s supposed to be a fairly deep draft. This is a tank job.

Well that’s just wonderful.

I made a big deal about how much I liked this team, specifically because they weren’t tanking. They were making an honest effort. I laid out all the ways that tanking is a flawed method. And how this year being the worst team in the league means even less (Seriously, there is a 14% chance that the worst team will draft #1, and a near even chance of drafting 5th. I shouldn’t have to say this, but you don’t want to be the worst team in the association.). But the tank appears to be on.

They lost to the Cavaliers. You shouldn’t lose to the Cleveland Cavaliers. They are a bad team. Today’s Cavaliers are a squad who should just accept that LeBron is gone forever, and pivot away from basketball to becoming an improv troupe or something with similarly low stakes. And the Nets lost to the Cleveland Cavaliers in true tanking fashion: By getting their assess absolutely wrecked for most of the game by a really bad team. They had a chance to win in the end, and then subsequently did not win, because again, they’re in a really weird place, and very well may be doing all of this losing intentionally.

And then they lost to the Oklahoma City Thunder. The Thunder are not a bad team. As of this moment they’re 16-8 and sitting in second place in the Western Conference. And yet, the Nets were up very big, late in the game. I made a mental note when they were up 19 points. It was, “Hey, that’s a really big lead. I wonder how they blow it.”

The Brooklyn Nets are turning me into a cynical asshole. I’m normally a really chill dude.

That lead may have even gotten to a full 20 points at one time. I’m not sure. I remember when it was 19, and knew that they still were not going to win this game. I even mentioned in while on the phone with my dad, who doesn’t really get why I would care about the Brooklyn Nets. Near the halfway point in the call, I’d mentioned that the lead was down to 12 points. When we’d ended the call it was four. I knew in my soul that the Nets might as well have been down by 45 points. I was not wrong.

You’ll notice that the Brooklyn Nets decided to make Paul George an afterthought. At one point Spencer Dinwiddie has an “Oh shit” moment, and briefly decides to come within 10 feet of the five time All Star, before helplessly flying back out of range and allowing him a wide open look at the dagger. And because this is against the Nets, that wide open look from downtown might as well have been a layup. That was aggravating, but what came next gave a real clue as to what’s actually going on here.

You’ll have to bear with me, as I don’t believe there is an actual Youtube highlight that I can link to:

The Nets have 3 seconds to score a bucket. Not ideal, but also, not impossible. The Nets give the ball to Jared Dudley. Jared Dudley is trying against all odds to make a play.

*Brief time out*

Jared Dudley should not be given the ball, looking to make a play off the dribble with three seconds left and the game on the line. Jared Dudley, while being the kind of cagey vet every team needs, is also the spirit animal of every 56 year old weekend warrior at the YMCA. Here is Jared Dudley

Ha! That’s a cool photo. I like Jared Dudley as a person. But if somebody puts a gun to your head and tells you to draw up a play to save your life, are you giving the rock to this man? You are not. Jared Dudley should not have been on the court in that scenario, and if he was, he should have been hiding on the wing, doing his best to look inconspicuous on the off chance that he gets left all the way alone to drain a game salvaging trey. He’s not your playmaker. That’s just not his game. You don’t do that if you have serious intentions on winning.

*End time out*

Anyway, the ball is slapped out of Jared’s hand. The scorekeeper sets the game clock to 0.1 seconds. Basically, an impossible scenario. However the replay showed the ball bouncing around and the clock really should have been set to 1.3 seconds. 1.3 seconds is more than enough time to get one shot off and win or tie the game. The refs are allowed to review this within the last two minutes of the game. The play was shown for the arena. Kenny Atkinson knew that the clock should have been reset to 1.3 seconds. He said nothing. The Nets lost. I don’t expect for anybody to notice or care that Kenny Atkinson did not die on the hill to gain 1.2 seconds on a game in early December. But at the same time, I don’t think we’re entering conspiracy theory territory to suggest that he didn’t do everything that he could to have won, and very well might not have cared if they lost.

Anyway, I didn’t have a chance to watch the game on Friday, because I had a call to hang out with a friend, but they were playing the Raptors who are killing everybody this year, and this team is obviously tanking so

Son of a bitch. God damn it. That would have been cool to watch. They were wearing the Biggie Smalls unis too. Everything sucks.

I should mention that the night before my wife had dragged me out to the Barclays Center for a concert. Now I thought I was just going for some standard triple bill thing, but it turns out it was put on by a local alternative radio station, and was actually a six bill monstrosity. Here’s another thing: I don’t like alternative rock. Alternative rock is pop music with guitars. Despite its name, it’s commercial as shit, and I find that it appeals to the absolute worst people. So when the night started with Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda’s solo set, I knew that I was not in for a great night. As some of you may remember, other Linkin Park singer Chester Bennington commit suicide sometime back. Mike then asked for the crowd to sing Chester’s part on In The End. But In The End is a silly song for pissed off white teenagers in 2001. Hearing middle aged dudes solemnly singing “I tried so hard, and got so far, but in the end, it doesn’t even matter” will never be taken seriously. I’m sorry. Suicide is not funny, but that is an inherently silly moment. You might as well try to get them to tearfully sing “I want my baby back, baby back, baby back, baby back.” And then the night just kept on going with bands that I don’t care about. Florence and the Machine came on, and if I’m being totally honest, I kind of like some of their stuff, but the audio wasn’t quite right and Florence’s voice gave me an absolutely throbbing headache. She’s extremely talented, but it was really loud at a gratingly high pitch. Also she walked around the stage barefoot, which wouldn’t have been a big deal, but then she stepped down into the unwashed masses of general admission. I think we can all agree that Florence Welch is absolute filthy. Sorry Florence, you can’t just shake off athletes foot. While she was in the crowd she got lifted up. Some fans got to see Florence and the Vagine. And then Muse came on. Muse was fine when I lived in Florida and delivered pizza, but I’d already been given tickets to one Muse concert before, and once is really enough for Muse. So at 11:45 I threw in the towel and left the concert while they had another two songs to go. No, my wife did not leave with me. I ditched her.

Look man, it was close to five hours of music that I am mostly indifferent toward. I’m not making a value judgement on you if you happen to like Muse or Death Cab for Cutie or Bastille. But 7 to midnight is a long shift, and we live two blocks away from the arena. She knows the way back home.

Yeah. She was a little bit pissed.

This is getting long. I’ll stop now. Both teams suck. Nets had a big lead and for a second it looked like they were about to blow that lead as well. But the Knicks are also just awful, and the Nets won anyway. I don’t know. Are they tanking? Are they just bad? I’m overthinking it. And I have a cold. I need to go to bed.

Oh, shit, I forgot the Spencer Dinwiddie shoes. Here they are.

There should be four, but I only see three on his Instagram account. The ones against the Knicks were just purple. I don’t think anything was actually drawn on those.

The Brooklyn Nets are 10-18, and in 11th place in the Eastern Conference.