The Little Engine That Should

By
Updated: February 6, 2014

 

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The black paint job is fresh with white trim.  The logo has been redesigned to create an image that would appeal to a broader, hipper demographic.  Fancy new accessories have been added on, yet an element of doubt surfaces that the engine won’t start.

No I’m not talking about a car whose image has been totally overhauled.  This description is the current state of the Brooklyn Nets.

For years the “New Jersey” brand of this team was the butt of most NBA jokes.  They were a “Mickey Mouse” organization who felt more like a minor league franchise-  half empty arenas, fake crowd noise, Sly, McFamily Night, etc.

The move to Brooklyn was the opportunity for the Nets to start over and establish themselves as a first class organization within the grandiose Barclays Center.  Just as Kia and Hyundai have reinvented themselves in recent years, the Nets were on their way to transforming their identity and earning industry respect.

Enter Deron Williams, who was brought here to be the engine that would power this machine into the upper echelon of the NBA.  The all-star point guard paid his “Nets dues” while the team suffered through their final days in The Garden State.  Everyone knew that the big picture was in 2012 when the move to Brooklyn was finally complete and a contender would be built.

Unfortunately for Nets fans, the check engine light has lit up way more frequently than it should. Routine maintenance and small repairs are to be expected, but if there are fundamental issues with the engine, the rest of the vehicle is doomed.  It seems that our expensive motor hasn’t performed up to its highly perceived value and spends too much time at the mechanic’s shop.

An all too familiar sight for Nets fans.

Yes Deron has been unlucky in the injury department, but if it isn’t one thing, then it is something else- unhappiness with teammates, wrist ailments, arena sight lines, ankle pain, negative body language, offensive schemes, low confidence, yada, yada, yada.  You can see why the fan base has begun to sour on the once prized acquisition, right?

Despite their angst and frustration, Net fans desperately want to this to work with D-Will.  They essentially liquidated all of their assets to trade for, re-sign, and surround him with upper echelon talent up and down the roster.  Everyone knows that the Nets will only go as far as he will take them, and many fans hold out hope that he will return to the form that once put in him in the same sentence as Chris Paul.

However, there comes a point in which these troubling issues are no longer fluke occurrences but more of a consistent trend.  Perhaps this has become the norm of the Deron Williams Era with the Nets organization.  An all-star caliber performance on one night is followed up with a series of average/underwhelming performances.  There rarely seems to be a high level of play that is sustained over a long period of time.

Is it possible that we’ve bought a lemon?   I hope that I am very wrong here and D-Will will somehow find a way to snap out of this two year funk.

What other choice do we have?  We will continue to change his oil with nothing but the best PRP technology has to offer, and hope that it will restore the quality that got us so excited when we first saw him in that Utah showroom.

Hopefully the check engine light will stay off for a while, but until then, the feelings of doubt will always linger with what has now become our car with the unreliable engine.

check engine

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