It is one matter to be the second-class team in your sport in a city. Submitted into evidence: the Nets versus the Knicks. The Nets always have been the ugly cousin for fan loyalty and interest.
But it’s an entirely different matter when you are in an NBA playoff series in New York City and you rank behind coyote sightings in interest. Has there ever been an NBA playoffs in New York City that people cared less about?
Brooklyn loves the Nets. But beyond that, they might as well be back in the Meadowlands Swamp. And they could not have picked a worse time in New York to try to gain citywide attention. The Nets scored 18 straight points between the third and fourth quarters and beat the Hawks, 91-83, Saturday in front of a sellout crowd of 17,732 to make it a 2-1 series and ostensibly generate interest. But what do you think New Yorkers will talk about Sunday?
The Subway Series with the resurgent Yankees and red-hot Mets, the Rangers and their Stanley Cup aspirations, the Islanders last postseason in Nassau County, the impact of the NFL draft on the Giants and Jets, that’s what.
“It really is under the radar,” a former Net who knew the frustration of being ignored, Kerry Kittles, said of the series. “I don’t know that they ever marketed the team the right way. They marketed ‘Brooklyn.’ ”
And not New York City.
“Bringing Jason Kidd there last year with Paul Pierce and [Kevin] Garnett helped,” Kittles said. “But there’s no real stars on that team. They don’t have an exciting style. The Eastern Conference is not an exciting style. A great example is that the team with the best record in the East is Atlanta. They play team ball but exciting? C’mon.”
The Nets made the playoffs on the last day of the season and lack captivating stars. Now they lack a captivating opponent. Had they finished seventh and drawn LeBron James and the Cavs, people would watch and care.
The Nets would have been better served having a coyote run across the court at Saturday’s opening tip which coincided with the start of the Islanders Game 6. And it came one hour before the start of CC Sabathia against Matt Harvey at Yankee Stadium.
Check out Friday’s New York papers. One paper had 18 sports stories displayed on its website, another put up 17. Not one story was about the Nets. In one tabloid, the Nets placed 12th, in another 13th, in terms of topic and placement.
“In New York, you’ve got to be up-tempo. New Yorkers want to see you run, get up and down. Walk it up is boring,” said one of the most exciting players ever, ex-Hawk Dominique Wilkins, now Atlanta’s VP of basketball operations.
“And in New York, you have to have that guy that rises up and puts the team on his shoulders,” Wilkins said. “This is something league-wide that hurts: there just are not enough leaders.”
The Hawks play a style that brings tears of joy to the eyes of coaches but tears of frustration to the eyes of TV execs — especially when you consider they are matched against the Nets who had the NBA’s worst TV ratings.
“The Nets are viewed in a different light now than in New Jersey,” said NBA president Basketball Ops Rod Thorn, the Nets chief during two Finals runs. “We beat the Knicks for a bunch of years almost every time we played them. But the Knicks were the Knicks. We made inroads, but we were never were able to be on equal footing with the Knicks.”
And it bothered the players.
“It was frustrating,” Kittles said. “We didn’t need to have ridiculous fans going crazy. But it would have been nice to have sellout crowds. We were a fun team. We won games, we were competitive, we ran. I don’t understand it.”
Maybe it’s just what it means to be the Nets. They’ll play Game 4 Monday. And you can read all about it.
It’ll be several pages after news of coyote sightings.