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December 3, 2009
Worst Start to a Season? Envelope Goes to the Nets
The New York Times
by Howard Beck
The Times once again manages to report on the woes of the New Jersey Nets while avoiding any mention of the root cause of the problems — the ownership regime of its business partner, Bruce C. Ratner. At least Yormarketing Genius makes an appearance.
There are a variety of ways to cope with humiliating, mystifying, record-setting infamy. Some choose angry words, some choose apathy and some choose disguises.
With the Nets on the verge of making the worst kind of history Wednesday night, two fans sitting courtside chose paper. They pulled brown shopping bags (curiously adorned with festive red Santa hats) over their heads. Above the eye holes, scrawled in black ink, was their mark of shame: 0-18.
Moments later, the Dallas Mavericks made it official, sending the Nets to a 117-101 defeat, their 18th in a row, the longest streak of futility to start an N.B.A. season.
Boos echoed across the Izod Center, which was perhaps half full. Mostly, the fans sat silently fidgeting, resigned to their team’s ugly fate.
...When the losing streak hit 10 games, the Nets’ famously creative marketing department took note, with a “10 is Enough” promotion and $10 tickets. There was an opportunity, however perverse, to sell history Wednesday. That discussion took place, though it was very brief.
“This is a basketball team,” said Brett Yormark, the president and chief executive of Nets Sports and Entertainment. “And I think there comes a point where, you know what, let’s hold back on the marketing.”
Yep, that's Yormark. Mr. Restraint.
The next promotion will be aimed at life after the streak. Yormark is calling it “the second season,” the one that begins when the team is finally, mercifully healthy. Keyon Dooling, Tony Battie and Yi are expected back soon.
NoLandGrab: Yeah, with bench-warmers Dooling, Battie and Yi back in the lineup, the Nets ought to turn things around in no time.
Unlike The Times, most news outlets aren't shy in assigning proper blame for the demise of a franchise that only a few short years ago contended for a title.
Fox Sports on MSN, Nets go from bad to worst with 0-18 start
By all rights, team president Rod Thorn should be on the hot seat departed by Frank. However, Thorn's roster changes were done with the explicit aim of reducing the team's payroll. He was just following orders.
Accordingly, the man who issued those instructions should be the individual condemned to coach the Nets. It would indeed be perfect justice if the season-long public humiliations resulting from his presidential decisions would be directed on a game-to-game basis at none other than owner Bruce Ratner.
Yahoo! Sports!, Streak sends Nets careening into history
They had come out of morbid curiosity, a perverse loyalty to the decades of embarrassment and humiliation here. They had come to see the fruition of how a despicable owner and a mismanaged Brooklyn arena bid transformed the New Jersey Nets back into a sinkhole of a franchise, a punch line for the sport. Families had come to wear paper bags, and a father and son had come to be threatened with expulsion by security for holding up a sign that said, “End Ratner’s Reign of Error.”
They had come because, well, they practically give tickets away here now.
...Before a half-empty Meadowlands they lost 117-101 to the Dallas Mavericks, and the Nets had so much pride, so much resolve to fight and keep themselves from a biblical basketball embarrassment, they let the Mavs shoot 80 percent for a half and 90 percent for a quarter. It shouldn’t be that easy to shoot that well in the layup line, but the Nets quit on this game, this streak, the way the owner, Bruce Ratner, quit a long time ago. Ratner has little money left for this franchise, and less character.
I will not be paying to watch the Nets again, unless the Russian trying to buy the team from Ratner tells him to take his Atlantic Yards and shove them up his ass, and moves the team to the Prudential Center in Newark where they should have been from the day that place opened in October 2007.
Bloomberg News, New Jersey Nets Fall to 0-18, Set Season-Opening Loss Record
Even Mike Bloomberg's news outlet can dance around the Ratner issue.
The team pared costs as Bruce Ratner, who purchased the franchise in 2004, worked to gain approval for a new arena -- the Barclays Center -- as part of a residential and commercial project in Brooklyn, New York.
Posted by eric at December 3, 2009 10:26 AM