Diatribe #16 - June 26, 2004
Reversal Of Fortune
See, I told you so.

I realize that Netsfans are a fickle lot, caring passionately about their team, but not passionately enough to pay sky-high prices to go see them in an outdated arena.

But they don't deserve this outhouse-to-penthouse-and back out again treatment that they're about to get from new owner-to-be Bruce Ratner. The signs are obvious, despite all the downplaying and denials going on inside Nets HQ.

What kind of basketball fan could have predicted Jason Kidd's name floating in trade rumors, just one season after his monumental re-signing with the franchise for $100 million? Didn't that signing, just one summer ago, cement the changing of Nets' fortunes forever?

Oh, wait - those were different owners, with a different agenda. Last year it was building a new arena in Newark.

Now, Mr. Ratner wants the Nets as the centerpiece of his career-capping achievement in real estate development, closing down a neighborhood by any means possible in order to build his dream complex. The Nets, of course, are just the means to the end - no basketball fan is Mr. Ratner, apparently.

This pseudo-owner, all full of concern and compassion, is talking about nickel-and-diming the Nets back to the Secaucus Seven years, or perhaps worse, while he waits for his vision to transpire. Of course, we helped him on that end, by not supporting the previous greedy ownership and not paying the high prices for less experience but better basketball in the Continental Arena.

This is what we get for that, Netsfans.

How bad are things? The Nets even fired their public address announcer, Rick Zolzer, and he's only make a few hundred bucks a game.

When does it reach bottom? When Kenyon Martin is allowed to walk away? When Kerry Kittles, Lucious Harris, Aaron Williams and Rodney Rogers are allowed to walk away, or traded for spare parts? When draft picks are routinely dealt for cash and non-guaranteed contracts? When Kidd is moved to someone crazy enough to want to win?

I told you back then, and I'm telling you now - nothing good will come from this Ratner ownership, at least until he gets the Nets to Brooklyn. By then, the team will struggle to win, having been shorn of all its parts, and probably of its chief architect, Rod Thorn.

I just can't see Thorn sticking around to watch this unfold. Too proud of a man, to absorbed in putting together a winner. And hey, he probably doesn't need the money, either. Why not turn things over to architect-in-training VP Ed Stefanski while he can get out with his reputation intact?

I had intended this to be a comment on the draft, and strictly on the draft. How the Nets parted ways with their senses and watched as the future was chosen without them. Great stories, Dwight Howard and the other high schoolers, Okafor and his chance to be associated with a franchise from Game 1, and all those foreign draftees that we know little about (and can pronounce even less). But somehow this is so much bigger than all of that.

Face it, we could live with skipping a draft pick, especially with Nenad Krstic coming over from Europe (hopefully, he's still coming...maybe Ratner won't supply the plane fare over.). Realistically, I can live with some trades and salary dumps - hey, the Nets needed to reload anyway, just because the current group had two years to do it's thing and just couldn't get over the hump.

But breaking up the Holy Trio of Kidd, Martin and Jefferson? Clearly, it's not time to do that. But now, of course, it's only about money.

Who knows what damage has been done to Kidd by floating his name around? If he does stay, think it'll have any impact on his desire to give it all? With a team that is knowingly less than competitive because of financial restrictions?

Welcome to Net Purgatory, where the team is short of talent, but long on financial savings.

This is what we get with Mr. Ratner's ownership, Netsfans. Plenty of off-season news, but certainly not like anything we would have hoped for.

Make some noise about this. Call the NBA offices, write your local newspaper's opinion page. Protest by withholding your ticket dollars. Do what you can, or what you must.

Because you deserve better than a carpetbagging, greedy, meddling owner who puts his own self-interest in front of yours. After all, it's you who supports this very business he hopes to use as a springboard to more money than you and I will ever see.

And if that's not a good enough reason, I don't know what is.

Email Joe and voice your frustration. Send your comments, your ideas and your protests my way, and we'll make sure they find a home.

Read both Adrian Wojnarowski (Bergen Record) and Mike Lupica (NY Daily News) if you don't believe me.
- Joe

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