Dub Nation Rooting Guide #2: Brooklyn Nets (2) vs Boston Celtics (7). & Open Thread.
Ainge’s hypothetical trades vs the mercenary JuggerNets
Brooklyn Nets
Ex-Warriors
Kevin Durant. Honorary Warrior, but not quite Honorary Warrior For Life in the last election.
Warriors Villains
James Harden. We covered Harden’s case in detail before. in his election as Warriors Villain For Life. Rival and MVP obsessive, he blends supreme skill with the cheapest possible tactics, with his absurd talents getting overshadowed by dangerous hooks and constant foul-baiting and the general sense that he constantly exploits loopholes in the rulebook.
But, he also lost constantly to the Warriors providing them with many of their greatest victories. He also forced his way out of Houston in a very ugly fashion, virtually putting on a fat suit and partying in COVID clubs to tank his value as much as possible. And though it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving owner, it was damn disrespectful to his coach and teammates who seem to be pretty upright characters.Blake Griffin. Essential part of the rival Lob City Clippers, as their most punchable face. We studied that rivalry before in detail, but by now feelings have cooled as Blake’s career took a nose-dive due to injuries and bad teams. Last year, a healthy plurality of Dub Nation still wished him ill, but even more just plain don’t care and so he does NOT officially qualify for Warriors Villain.
Petty Rivalries
Kyrie Irving. Hit the Finals-winning shot in 2016, then forced his way out of Cleveland to get away from all the LeBron-stan reporters wanting him to appreciate LeBron’s being his father figure(?!?!), got more of a reputation as a team-killer by joining a strong Celtics team and dragging it down, perplexed everyone with his dedication/trolling about flat-earth crackpotism, conspired with KD to form a superteam with the Nets.
Jeff Green is like a supernova of neutrinos, eventually passing through every team and always just on the verge of a breakout season but being hard to detect. Naturally, he was a member of numerous Warriors playoff opponents. However, I don’t believe he ever had a game turning play, so how mad can we be at him?
DeAndre Jordan. Now in his declining years, he was part of the Lob City Clippers, but was the least annoying prominent face. We studied that rivalry throughly before and found Dub Nation mostly didn’t care about DAJ. Past efforts by the front office to get DAJ resulted in stupid cap moves including losing Jeremy Lin. He also encouraged KD to leave the path of light to form the Jugger-Nets.
Team Grudges
Another mercenary grab bag of stars, setting up shop in a town, strip-mining it for resources, overwhelming the playoffs with accumulated talent. Following the LeBron playbook so far, will the stars soon leave town once the mine goes dry, leaving it a smoking toxic hellhole? Only time will tell.
Boston Celtics
Ex-Warriors
None.
Friends
Steph Curry and Jayson Tatum seem to have some mutual respect.
Warriors Villains
Tristan Thompson. I’m not sure he rises to the level of a villain? And important and underrated part of the Cavaliers who were the Eastern Conference’s best rival to the Dynasty Warriors. He did play a big role in the scuffle 2018 Finals Game 1. He’s involved in some personal drama soap opera involving Kardashians that you might care about.
Petty Rivalries
Brad Stevens was for a while the poster boy for The Genius Coach Who Wins All If He Only Had Top Talent archetype. But now that he hasn’t managed to get anything out of Kyrie Irving and seems stuck in mediocrity with Tatum, Brown and Kemba Walker, that poster might be coming down if he doesn’t make playoff noise this year.
GM Danny Ainge announces after every big NBA trade that he offered a better package that was rejected.
UPDATE (5/27): Ainge also made the baffling and factually incorrect statement that he’d never heard of Celtics fans being racist in 26 years.Jaylen Brown went to Cal if you care about that.
Team Grudges
Isaiah Thomas played through his sister’s death and various injuries at the cost of his career and was immediately dumped by BOS for Kyrie Irving. Pretty shocking move even if the league’s motto is “It’s Just A Business”.
Celtics fans talk a lot about their many championships, omitting the fact that they’ve won 1 championship since 1986, and most of the previous ones came from Red Auerbach ripping off other hobbyist owners when the league was eight teams that could barely get a highlight on TV.
… so, who are you rooting for?
Give me the Celtics. Anything to discourage the trend of mercenary strip-mining superteams.
As much as I appreciate KD, I can't root for the Nets. They are a soulless killing machine that needs to be stopped.
I find it funny that the New Yorkers seemed to have embraced the Knicks over the Nets based on the fact the Knicks games sold out in 20 minutes versus the Nets having to offer discounts to get people to their games.
OT from hoopsrumors:
---
After Ben Simmons scored just six points on 3-of-9 shooting in Game 1, Sixers head coach Doc Rivers said he doesn’t understand criticism of the standout guard, who contributed 15 assists and 15 rebounds in the team’s victory. “Only in Philadelphia,” Rivers said, per Rob Maaddi of The Associated Press. “If you guys don’t know the treasure you have by now, then shame on everyone because he’s been fantastic for us. … I’m amazed that people don’t see what he does. We’re so caught up in the amount of points he scored. … Does it matter if Ben had all 125? Would we be mad that Joel (Embiid) didn’t score? Who cares who scores as long as we’re scoring. … When Ben plays, we score more points.”
---
Sound familiar?