Utah Jazz Week Journal Part 2: New Jersey Nets

So after a painful and disgraceful loss to the Washington Wizards the Utah Jazz got just what they needed – the New Jersey Nets.  So last night I travelled to the Prudential Center in Newark (really nice arena, but made me sad to know the Nets will abandon the arena in less than 2 years.  I looked at all the employees like the Cars in the small town in the Pixar film Cars; one day they will be underemployed.).

It was also Russian Cultural night so in addition to Russia’s most famous basketball player in town, the Jazz’ Andrei Kirilenko, there apparently were also tons of prostitutes and skin care technicians in the arena. The national anthem was sung by some Russian woman who won a Russian contest.  It may have been the best rendition I have heard since Whitney Houston’s at the Super Bowl many years ago.  It was that good.  Side note – Alexander Ovechkin was at the game as well.  I think that tells you how badass the Nets’ owner is (like Michael Corleone requesting personal appearances from Johnny Fontaine).  He got the world’s greatest hockey player to come to a Nets’ game!  But I don’t think Mikhail Prokhorov asks a second favor.  Sadly the anthem would be the highlight for me and the Jazz.

The Jazz put up another stinker of a game.  They played the exact same way against the Wizards.  So similar it almost looks like a game plan.

1. Play like crap in the first quarter.
2. Pull even at halftime
3. Play the 3rd quarter like you are trying to lose the game and go down at least 15
4. Wait until 7 minutes remain in the game and then play your balls off and lose narrowly

The Utah Jazz, whether you hate them or love them, always played hard and with great execution.  It is why they were able to win, even when they had limited talent.  This team is not doing that.  It is the first time I have ever seen the Jazz underachieve.  The coaching and talent they have should result in a top 6 NBA team, but they are playing like a bottom 5 team.  But there were other things to annoy me, making the trip to Newark a huge disaster.

For one, the Nets dancers now appear to be dancers.  They used to be  glorified strippers bouncing around, but now the cleavage is gone and they actually look like they are trying to execute dance moves.  In past years it was a 50/50 proposition of whether one of the dances would blow the Nets’ mascot at midcourt.  Now, they just act like regular dancers, instead of exotic ones.  Perhaps the Nets’ billionaire owner Mikhail Prokhorov has already moved the former dancers directly on to his private jet.

The other terrible news was two part.  Kim Kardashian was at the game, so I had no problem telling my girlfriend, who was at the game with me, that this might be my chance.  I mean, why would Kim Kardashian be at the game (a Jazz-Nets game?), if not to meet a tall, underachieving man with a black father?  She is the Queen of the B list black athletes, so maybe she is ready to take a few more steps backward and date a G-list half-black comedian?  Well it turns out I was right, but only because she is now dating Nets’ forward Kris Humphries, who I cannot tell if he is a caucegro, but he looks like it.  So she is coming closer to my territory since she is dating a D list pro athlete.  So once Kardashian is on husband number 8 territory in her 50s she should be at the J-L Cauvin level of desperation.

But what was more disturbing than the Kardashian news was the fact that three male friends of mine (a screenwriter manager, a person who works in real estate and a comedian) all knew that she was dating Kris Humphries.  That is an absolute disgrace.  My girlfriend watches E! and she was not as up-to-date on Kim Kardashian’s dating life as three heterosexual men.  As Adam Carolla said with the title of his recent book, “In Fifty Years We’ll All Be Chicks.”

So The Nets no longer employ whores as dancers, Kim Kardashian continues to date the wrong mediocre men and the Jazz played the worst game of basketball I have ever seen them play in person.  I guess it can only get better when I head to Philly on Saturday for Jazz-76ers.