Nets Are Committing Consumer Fraud

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- For now, we won't worry about the cheerleaders on stilts and the fans wearing bags on their heads and the fact Jay-Z, a man interested in making history, wasn't around to watch the team he partially owns, the New Jersey Nets, enter the record books. For now, we won't worry about the hip-hop mogul's missed songwriting opportunity on the night the Nets sunk to 0-18, the worst start by any team in NBA history.

"New Jer ... sey! Concrete jungle where bricks are made of!'' he could have lyricized about the league's worst-shooting team. "There's nothing you can't lose! Let's hear it for Jersey, Jersey, Jersey!''

For now, I'm wondering what possesses a professional sports franchise to let itself become so numbingly pathetic. Only six years ago, the Nets were making their second straight trip to the league finals and embarrassing the far more popular team across the Hudson River, the New York Knicks. As recently as two years ago, they were armed with star players and gate attractions such as Jason Kidd, Vince Carter and Richard Jefferson. Now, they're a disgrace that should be paying fans to attend games at the Izod Center, where entire sections of seats were empty Wednesday as the Nets allowed 49 points in the second quarter, let Kidd and the Dallas Mavericks hit 17 of 19 shots to take a 27-point halftime lead and prompted questions as to whether they'll win a game by New Year's Day.

The Nets aren't just bad, folks. They aren't even trying. I am not kidding when I suggest the NBA commissioner, David Stern, apologize to their diminishing fan base and either issue ticket refunds or offer free concessions and parking in the Meadowlands. If not, we're talking about a legitimate case of consumer fraud.

No Breaks in Sight: After setting history, things won't get any easier -- six of the next 10 are on the road, and three of their next four home games are on the wrong end of a back-to-back.

Dec. 4: Bobcats
Dec. 6: @ Knicks
Dec. 8: @ Bulls
Dec. 9: Warriors
Dec. 11: @ Indiana
Dec. 13: @ Hawks
Dec. 15: @ Cavaliers
Dec. 16: Jazz
Dec. 18: @ Raptors
Dec. 19: Lakers

New Jersey's Full Schedule "At this point, I feel the streak has definitely gotten the best of us," said a disillusioned Chris Douglas-Roberts, the second-year guard who went 38-2 two years ago at the University of Memphis. "So when a team goes on a run, it's almost like we give up, which is really unfortunate but that's what it looks like to me. We give up and just lay down instead of trying to fight. We don't have any heart. Weak. It's a sign of weakness.''

You mean the problem wasn't Lawrence Frank, the Doogie Howser lookalike who was fired as coach last weekend? "It's not the coach. Red Auerbach could be coaching us, and it's still us," Douglas-Roberts went on. "You really have to have the heart to overcome something like this. We're the only team without a win. We have to be a much tougher team. If anything, fake it. FAKE IT! Toughness, you can't teach. Once you're labeled as soft, that's the absolute worst thing you can be labeled. And I feel that teams are coming in here thinking that way. Teams are gonna think, 'Oh, we got the Nets. All you gotta do is come out and punch them in the mouth and they'll give up and run with their tail between their legs.'''

Harsh. And nothing but the truth. Not that the roster, beyond point guard Devin Harris and big man Brook Lopez and a couple of other serviceable parts, is at an NBA level. The idea behind trading Kidd, which set off the purge of Carter and Jefferson, was to slash enough payroll to position the Nets for the NBA's free-agent bonanza next summer. What owner Bruce Ratner didn't calculate was the team sinking to such wretched depths that no superstar -- including LeBron James, even if he's Jay-Z's close pal -- wants any part of this operation. Worse, the Nets are plotting a move to a new arena in Brooklyn in June 2012, meaning the poor fans of Jersey are being asked to support a lame-duck franchise that is moving across the Holland Tunnel, the entire expanse of Manhattan and the Brooklyn Bridge. As it is, entire sections of the arena are empty, forcing the team to take desperate marketing measures and send players into the community, such as Harris' appearance at a South Orange grocery store. What happens the next two seasons when they're playing either in the Meadowlands or in downtown Newark? And, for that matter, what happens in Brooklyn if no major free agent signs?

Team president Rod Thorn is kidding himself when he says, "We're going to try to let everybody see we are capable of winning games, that we do have some very good pieces here that will be here for quite a while that would make it more attractive for potential free agents at the end of the year.'' He doesn't think players around the league aren't noticing, reading, laughing and wincing?

"It's unfortunate. There's nobody on that team that was a part of the run we had here," Kidd said. "They're going in a different direction.''

Yeah, south. "You've got to have energy and effort for the full 48 minutes," Lopez said. "You can't go out there and get punked. You have to try to hit them first."

"We're not a tough-minded team,'' forward Trenton Hassell said. "We let people lay it up instead of having any physical capability. Everyone wants to win but until all of us step up and play together and play hard, we're going to be the same team we are right now."

"There aren't really any words I can use to describe it," Harris said of the streak. "You want to try to make history, but not this way. I don't want to be associated with it in any way.''

But it's there, like toxic waste in the Jersey swamps, nothing that Springsteen, Bon Jovi or any of the local rock poets want to include in their song lyrics, either. And the streak could go on indefinitely, just so you know. Five of the Nets' next seven games are on the road, turning Friday's home game against Charlotte and next Wednesday's home game against Golden State into their best opportunities to win. If they lose their next six, they'll own the league's all-time losing streak of 23 games, currently shared by the 1995-96 Vancouver Grizzlies and 1997-98 Denver Nuggets. And to think that on opening night, they led the woebegone Minnesota Timberwolves by 19 points in the third quarter, only to blow the lead and lose 95-93 at the buzzer. Two weeks later, they lost 81-80 when Miami's Dwyane Wade hit a three-pointer with a tenth of a second left. The Nets haven't been close since.

If there is hope, it comes in two curious forms. One is the pending sale of the team for $200 million to Russian tycoon Mikhail Prokhorov, which would seem to be a great thing except for one problem: He is quite the flamboyant fellow. Two years ago, he was detained in France while suspected of buying high-end prostitutes for associates. Assuming the Nets sale is approved, Prokhorov's estimated net worth of $14.9 billion only can be healthy for the team and the Brooklyn arena project, known as Atlantic Yards. He can use some of the money to lure an elite coach -- uh, who would want to coach this team? -- and allow Kiki Vandeweghe, who will coach the Nets the rest of this season, to return to his general manager's seat. Vandeweghe and veteran assistant Del Harris will man the bench and try to coax effort and success from a team that has fought injury problems all season. Is it possible the Nets will gun for the worst single-season record in NBA history, the 9-73 abomination that was the 1972-73 Philadelphia 76ers?

"Nobody likes to lose. Period. And obviously we made it clear and you all know that this is a developmental year, but nobody expected to be 0-17," Vandeweghe said before the 18th loss. "That's just obviously not acceptable, and I think that it's not acceptable to anybody and especially the players."

Said assistant coach Tom Barrisse, the interim head coach during the losses that tied and set the record: "I think what happens is you know it wears on you. It's not a two-game losing streak. We play four games a week in this league, and it's every day and every other day, and you know you hear it and you start to feel it a little bit.''

Of course, the Nets always have been dubious to some degree, a vagabond bunch with a mere handful of fans in the shadow of a basketball mecca on 33rd Street and Seventh Avenue. This is the team that sold Julius Erving to Philadelphia for $3 million after they couldn't reach contract terms. This is the team that lost a bidding war for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar out of college because Milwaukee made a better offer. This is the team Larry Brown abandoned during a good season to take a job at the University of Kansas. This is the team that has played in armories, college gyms and dumps throughout New Jersey and Long Island in a mostly futile 42-year existence.

The mood Wednesday night smacked of a freak show. Two of the dance-team members were on stilts during a timeout, trying to rally an announced crowd of 11,689. Two guys near courtside wore bags with Santa hats on top. During a Kiss Cam segment, a guy proposed to his girlfriend, and she tearfully accepted -- boy, there's something that'll make the grandkids proud, getting engaged on the night the Nets plunged into infamy.

"Nets Basketball!'' the public-address announcer shouted enthusiastically. "More than a game!''

Before long, he may be carnival-barking in an empty arena.