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December 23, 2011
Nothin' but Nets!
The Mikhail Prokhorov/Bruce Ratner/Jay-Z-owned basketball team made news this week — and none of it good. Could it be The Curse of the Land Grab?
Yahoo! Sports, Kris Humphries, not LeBron James, is the NBA’s most hated player
First off, they coughed up $8 million to re-sign the league's least-popular player.
A year ago at this time, Kris Humphries was a fairly unassuming backup big man for the New Jersey Nets. Then he started casually dating America's sweetheart Kim Kardashian. That romance eventually turned into something more serious -- he went on her TV show, she went to Newark for a game -- and in August they married. It lasted only 72 days, because some loves are just too powerful to do anything but burn out.
Humphries now has a greater celebrity profile, but that fame has been welcomed with searing hatred by many Kardashophilic people of this nation. In fact, a recent Nielsen and E-Poll Market Research poll lists him as the most hated player in the NBA.
But that's not the real bad news. This is.
The New York Times, Foot Injury to Lopez Deals the Nets Twin Setbacks
Brook Lopez is heading for foot surgery, dealing a twin blow to the Nets’ prospects this season and their hopes of landing Dwight Howard.
Lopez sustained a stress fracture in the fifth metatarsal of his right foot in Wednesday’s preseason finale against the Knicks. Surgery is scheduled for Friday. The Nets have not announced a timetable for his return, but it is likely that Lopez will miss at least six weeks.
Lopez, 23, would be the key player in any trade for Howard, the Orlando Magic center, who has asked to be traded. The injury could delay any deal or perhaps scare off the Magic. The N.B.A. has a long history of big men having their careers derailed by foot problems, from Bill Walton to Yao Ming.
The severity of Lopez’s injury seemed to catch the Nets off guard. Although the foot was injured in the first half, Lopez played the entire game, finishing with 15 points and 9 rebounds in nearly 22 minutes.
NoLandGrab: Do you think Brook Lopez might be asking himself "would they have left me in for the whole game if they weren't planning on shipping me to Orlando?"
Posted by eric at December 23, 2011 10:40 AM