Five Ways The Nets Can Still Make This Season Worthwhile
These signs suggest that Nets fans are upset by their team's awfulness, but clearly they all wanted the opportunity to show off their art projects.
The Nets lost their 18th consecutive game on Wednesday. Considering they were desperate enough to suit me up and play me for 29 minutes, no one should be shocked by this. This team is shockingly bad. All your shock should be focused on the badness, not the losing. The losing stems from the badness.
Not only are the Nets having the worst start of any NBA team in the history of the league, they’re just four losses away from having the worst start of any team in the NBA, NFL, NHL and MLB. The ’88 Orioles lost its first 21 games.
So what can the Nets do now? In the team’s seven home games this season, they’ve averaged about 13,800 fans. That’s 28th in the league. They need butts in seats. Here are some ways they can make it happen.
1. Convince Converse to pay the team to play in classic Chuck Taylors. Coffee’s for closers. $160 Nikes are for winners. Converse All-Stars? Those are for everyday folks (or pros who play basketball like everyday folks). Honestly, if the shoes were good enough for Cousy and Schayes, are they really not good enough for Chris Douglas-Roberts? Are you willing to tell me that Chris Douglas-Roberts is a better basketball player than Bob Cousy. Say that right now to my face or admit that you’d like to watch Trenton Hassel try to drive the lane in a pair of low-top canvass shine-splinters.
Would the team be at a competitive disadvantage? Absolutely. Would they lose any more games than they already have? How could they?
2. Mafia Mondays. If there’s one thing I think about when I think “New Jersey,” it’s Bruce Springsteen. If there’s a second thing though, it’s probably Frank Sinatra. And if you needled me for a third thing, I’d scowl at you, wrinkle my face (which happens when I think too hard) and come up with “The Sopranos.”
There are only four games left at home on a Monday, so it isn’t as if this would cost too much. But let’s say any known members of the Cosa Nostra get it free. Any available seat. Heck, even some of the unavailable seats might become available depending on how bad the mob wants it. Are you gonna tell a crime boss he can’t sit in your loge?
They’ll probably bring their buddies, like Silvio and various guys named Pussy, and lord knows they’ll drink a ton. I can’t imagine that huddling up tons of mafioso under one roof and getting them blotto while they watch the Thunder or the Bobcats or whomever beat the mess out of the Nets would turn out poorly.
For additional fun, make Mondays half-price for all cops too.
3. Nets Dancers go front and center. Yeah, it’s a tired old ploy. You know what else is an old ploy? Trying to make money. And if you don’t have a problem with the latter, I see no reason for you to be scoffing at the former. The Nets are no good right now – even by New Jersey’s sliding scale – and making the dance team work extra hard can only be good for the team.
There are about two dozen dancers now, but if you hire a few dozen more (like they do for Blue Man Group) it would be easier to parade the most attractive women in the state* onto the side of the court that the action isn’t happening. The only way to get fans to show up to the IZOD Center without having them exit in a dejected state is to have most of them completely ignore the game in progress.
How might that happen? Cheerleaders on the other side of the court. Think about it. Are you thinking about it?
* Remember: we’re talking Jersey girls. I stand by the statement.
4. Create a mascot, suit him up, play him. The Nets have Sly, the Silver Fox. But he’s just not bringing in the fans. He doesn’t have the right energy and I think the man inside the suit has trouble seeing out of the eyeholes.
Not to get all Bill Simmons on you, but remember in “Teen Wolf” how sad and pitiful the crowds at Beacon Town High were when the team was bad and wolf-less? Then the wolf showed up and so did fans?
You’re very intelligent, so I know you know where I’m going with this.
Let’s a make a New Jersey Wolf or a New Jersey Dog or a New Jersey Bon Jovi (something with tons of hair) and add him to the team. Who wouldn’t want to see the mess this would create? Denver’s Chris Andersen gels himself up like a member of O-Town and he becomes a crowd favorite. Put a guy in a damn Chewbacca costume and watch the magic happen.
5. Offer a Twicket service. The nearly bankrupt Six Flags amusement park franchise left a lot to be desired in their business models. One of the few thing that worked, was its Twicket option. A customer could buy a Twicket, which cost more than a single day pass, but significantly less than if they had bought a pass for one day and then came back a few days later and bought another one.
The idea here is that you’re basically getting a free second day at the amusement park. Who wouldn’t want that, right? Well, tons of people don’t want that after they catch a cold from taking the water rides at night or barf on the Iron Wolf. But by the time all those people realize that they’re not coming back, they’ve already purchased the damn Twicket.
It’s like going to the movies. For just a quarter more, you can get the super jumbo popcorn. It’s just a quarter, right? Why wouldn’t a fella? Except that you can’t eat a super jumbo popcorn and the movie theater knows that. It also knows that you’re hungry now and not thinking about 100 minutes from now, when you’re going to develop a case of the fake-butter shakes.
And really, the fake-butter shakes is the best way to describe the feeling that washes over most people who have watched the Nets play this season. So if customers don’t care about barfing on the Iron wolf popped corn, why wouldn’t they plunk down an extra $10 to not only see them lose to the Knicks tonight, but to see them lose to the Bulls later in the week?
Comments are closed
