Deron Williams Update and Other Nets News

If we see this next year, it will be Nets' fans worst nightmare come true.

On Friday morning, Deron Williams announced, as he had done earlier this season, that he will not opt-in to the last year of his contract and will become a free agent in the summer. Some people believed that Dwight’s decision to stay with Orlando an extra year would convince Deron to do the same, but Deron really had no reason to do this and Howard’s decision should not effect Deron’s at all. In fact, it should have made it even less of a chance for Deron to sign to play with the Nets an extra year because he knows that Dwight won’t be with the team. Deron has made it very clear that he wants to “test the free agent market”, which means that he will look at other teams besides the Nets (with the Mavericks being the biggest team on his radar). If I am Deron Williams, I’m getting out of New Jersey the second my contract expires and running off to Dallas, Los Angeles, or somewhere else. This team is not going to be good this year or next year, and Deron is right in the middle of the prime of his career. Why would he want to waste it with the Nets? He’s probably mad enough that Utah traded him last year, because they have a better team than the Nets. He doesn’t want to waste any more of his talent on this failing organization. However, when Nets GM Billy King was asked about the situation, he seemed to be very confident that Deron would resign. But what else could he say? That he thought Deron would leave? Of course not. The Nets didn’t trade Deron and they are praying that he will stay with them, but at this point I really doubt it.

Hopefully Crash will be a strong player for the Nets

In other news, Gerald Wallace has announced that he will wear #45, a very disgusting number. Unless Crash opts out of his player option after this season (unlikely), we will be seeing a 45 running up and down the court every night for the next two years. Ew. At least 45 will hopefully play some good defense, which the Nets desperately need. Also, time is running out to resign Gerald Green for the rest of the year, and I don’t see how the Nets would not do this. They may in fact even sign him to a deal next year too. I don’t know how I feel about next year, but they definitely should sign him for the rest of this season. Lastly, please join me in welcoming Jerry Smith to the Nets! After trading two players and only getting back one, the Nets had an extra roster spot and called up Jerry Smith from the Armor. I kind of wanted L.D. Williams, because the Nets were down a Williams after trading Shawne, but Jerry will have to do. He is the 5th D-leaguer the Nets have called up this year, after Dennis Horner, Larry Owens, Andre Emmett, and Gerald Green. If only the Nets still had Ben Uzoh, we would have had Ben & Jerry. That would have made sense, because the Nets defense is soft and creamy and opposing offenses find it delicious.

If only Jerry Smith was called up last year, this would have been a reality...

It’s Thanksgiving Break

It’s what we’ve all been waiting for.  A post!  Our gratitude to all KHH fans for their patience and unwavering support. It is Saturday night of Thanksgiving weekend. I will return to school tomorrow night.

As we all know, a lot has happened in the KHH world. Kim and Kris broke up! This game us a reason/excuse to change the blog name to Kim Had Humps. They are still recovering from a nasty divorce after just 72 days of marriage. Keeping Up with the Kardashians has recently been all about the breakup.

Earlier today, the NBA announced that the lockout will probably end soon and a 66 game season will begin on December 25. The KHH bloggers will be in town for the first three weeks of the season. Eight New Jersey Nets have gone to play basketball overseas during the lockout. Some of them will return, but Sasha, GadZoom, and Uzoh won’t. Most of the international teams that Nets played for this offseason have done really well so far (Bojan Bogdanovic’s team was surprisingly awful). It’s especially unfortunate for Deron Williams’ Turkish team that the lockout will end because they have won 14 of their last 15 games. Deron Williams will presumably fly back to the U.S.A. soon.

Mets-Pirates Game 3 Recap

Kevin Correia. He is batting .000 with an OBP of .040. That's disgusting. He should've had one of the Pirates infield singles.

This was such a classic Mets game. They blew their lead late in the game, as they usually do, and lost for the second night in a row at home to the Pittsburgh Pirates, 9-3. The first 6 innings of the game were as boring as watching the second quarter of Nets-Pistons, but the last 3 innings were as good as Nets-Spurs garbage time. The first scoring came in the game by a two out, two RBI single by Ruben Tejada in the fourth inning. No other team scored again until the top of the seventh, and boy, was the top of the 7th fun. The inning started off with an Andrew McCutchen infield single. Fine. But that was not all. The Pirates hit 4 infield singles in a row to start the inning, 6 hits to start the inning, and 5 infield singles total in the inning. Basically, they had 8 hits in the inning (they had 2 going into the inning) and 5 of them were infield hits and 2 of the outfield hits could have been caught. So the Pirates had one clean hit in the inning and ended up scoring 5 runs. Somehow, there were no errors in the inning, just plays that should have been made. It was very typical Mets. The Pirates added 4 more runs in the top of the 8th before a home run by Justin Turner in the bottom of the inning. Shockingly, (and this is really shocking) it was the Mets first home run in 11 games. Wow. Out of the Pirates 14 hits, 13 of them were singles and the other was a double, so they really just got pretty lucky. Or the Mets played very bad defense. Probably both.

Neil Walker swinging for the fences

The starting pitching in this game was actually pretty good. Kevin Correia got his major league leading 8th win of the season and his 7th win on the road. He left after 6 innings, so when he left he was not winning the game, but after the Pirates scored 5 runs in the 7th inning, he got the win. Even though Chris Cappuccino gave up 5 runs in 6 innings, they were not at all his fault. They all came on infield singles in the 7th inning and at least half of them should have been outs. I kind of feel sorry for him because he pitched very well and has nothing to show for it. The Mets bullpen tonight was very typical. Pedro Beato gave up 3 runs in 1 inning and Mike O’Connor gave up a run without recording an out. Dale Thayer pitched the last two innings without giving up a run. Congrats Dale! You were the best Mets pitcher of the night!

Dale Thayer making his appearance

Now on to the jokes of the game, and there were many of them.

• Raphi was 40 minutes late today, so we arrived in the beginning of the second inning. We missed a great Andrew McCutchen diving play in the first inning, but we saw a replay of it. The Pirates had quite a few nice plays in the field today. I was impressed with their defense. Anyway, we decided to use our Mets-Pirates tickets from Monday to get into the lower level. I bought the cheapest tickets possible on Stubhub. We were very successful with our choice of seat because we were in the third row and did not get kicked out.
• We were sitting in foul territory in right field, which is home to Matt Diaz of the Pirates. People were yelling things at him in our section for most of the game and told him to give them balls. They were most likely drunk. He was smiling for most of the time and not really focusing on the game. Typical Pirate. I think he also tried to talk back jokingly to the people yelling at him but I don’t know what he said. Here are some pictures:

Matt Diaz in Right Field

Matt Diaz Smiling

• When Angel Pagan was up, he hit a ball down the first base line that was just foul. It wasn’t foul until he was almost at first base and he took his sweet time walking back home and picking up his bat (he is still officially my favorite Met because I got his hat on Monday). While he was walking back, Citi Field played a full round of R.A. Dickey’s alarm clock. For those of you who don’t know what this is, it is one of the cheers they play at baseball games. Once when R.A. Dickey was pitching, we decided that it is probably The Dick’s alarm clock. It is just very R.A. I enjoyed listening to it.
• People were yelling at Anthony, the Mets ballboy (who we call Carmelo) the whole game to give them balls. He gave out more balls than usual tonight. Also, we noticed that he got a red-haired Mohawk. Interesting. See pictures below:

Carmelo

• Because we were not sitting even close to our real seats and because Raphi forgot his Tote Bag to put peanuts in (bring it tomorrow), we did not start eating our peanuts until the 5th inning when we thought that nobody would kick us out. Surprisingly, these were the first good Shea peanuts we have had and there was not an infinite amount of them. We finished them in a record 1.5 innings. I was impressed.
• In the 8th inning, Pedro Beato intentionally walked Chris Snyder, the catcher for Pittsburgh. As you would have guessed, this move did not work out well for Beato.
• Mike O’Connor came in to pitch in the 8th inning. The reason the Mets brought him in was to pitch to Lyle Overbay, a lefty. O’Connor is the Mets’ lefty specialist (AKA defensive specialist, AKA The Cracker) and yet he still gave up a hit to Overbay. Following this, he walked Ronny Cedeno on 4 pitches and then gave up a hit to Xavier Paul. He did not record an out. Well done Mike.
• During all the Mets pitching changes in the 8th inning, K-Rod was bored. He decided to stare at the game through the wire fence in the bullpen. He probably could not have been more bored and disgusted with his team. The funny pictures are below:

K-Rod bored out of his mind staring through the bullpen fence

K-Rod's still bored

• After the Mets were down by 7 runs in the 9th inning, we decided to move up like usual. We went to our same seats as on Monday when I got Angel Pagan’s hat. When the game ended we went up to the Mets dugout again. Unfortunately, they did not win so they were not celebrating on the field and throwing things into the stands. However, I did receive a ball from a mysterious person in the Mets dugout. He just threw the ball over the top of it so I was not able to see who it was. It was a relatively easy catch seeing how difficult catching a ball usually is. Also, in the 7th inning stretch, I caught another orange Mets and Pepsi Max shirt. I will wear it tomorrow to the game. Below you will find a Mets 7th inning stretch video. Unfortunately I did not take it because I was trying to catch a shirt, but it is still ok. Also, you will see a high quality version of the Mets 7th inning stretch song. It is one of my favorites.

• This game was our first blowout Mets game of the season. Most of the other games have been close, but ironically, their first blowout win or loss comes in a loss to the worst team in baseball in the last 20 years. As I said earlier, the end of this game, especially the 9th inning, was equivalent to garbage time of Nets-Spurs. For those of you who don’t know, this year when the Spurs visited Newark, they terribly blew out the Nets. The entire 4th quarter featured Steve Novak, Chris Quinn, Ben Uzoh, and Quinton Ross. It was disgusting. A similarity between the two games was that people were just yelling at the players and there was no crowd noise because everyone had left, so the players are able to hear everything people say to them. One guy today was yelling at Lyle Overbay for the whole 9th inning. See Mets-Pirates garbage time pictures below:

Carlos Beltran

Mookie Wilson with Willie Harris

Willie

Lyle Overbay bored in the 9th inning

Your favorite KHH bloggers will be back at the Citi tomorrow for more Mets-Pirates action! It is an early start, 1 PM, but we hope to go for batting practice at 11:30. There is also a high possibility that we will go to Red Bulls-Crew on Saturday in Harrison. Sam may even join us! We are looking forward to it.

Mets-Nets Comparisons: Infield

David Wright and Brook Lopez.

This was a pretty easy comparison. Both guys are players that grew up in the teams’ farm system and they are fan favorites. They are among the best players on their respective teams. They are also both a little goofy and have been brought up in some trade rumors recently. One difference between them is that Lopez has never missed an NBA game while Wright has missed games with all sorts of injuries. They are both whiners; Lopez on the court and Wright off the field with stupid injuries.

David Wright and Brook Lopez

Josh Thole and Kris Humphries.

The Hump had his breakout season last year and Thole hopes to do the same this year. However, this is pretty unlikely seeing his start. Both players are still pretty young and have a lot to prove. Off the field, as we all know, The Hump is recently engaged to Kim Kardashian. Thole doesn’t seem to have a celebrity girlfriend as far as I know, but he should change that. Who wouldn’t want to date the Mets’ catcher? I think that if The Hump played baseball, he would be a catcher. He has the body type for that position. He isn’t very fast and I can imagine he would like playing that position. They are both unlikely to be traded anytime soon, though The Hump could choose to leave as a free agent.

Josh Thole and Kris Humphries

Ike David and Derrick Favors.

Both of these guys are young players with infinite potential (Favors probably more than Davis). So far in their careers, they have yet to be spectacular, but their futures are bright. Favors was traded to the Jazz in part of the DWill trade and will continue to grow in Utah. Ike will most likely not be traded because he is one of the few Mets that Fred Wilpon did not harshly criticize. Both of these players seem like pretty nice and relatable guys. I think that Ike Davis might be Jewish and Favors is only 2 years older than us. He is also apparently a Mets fan, so we can relate to him even more. Oh hi Jerry Manuel.

Ike Davis and Derrick Favors

Justin Turner and Anthony Morrow.

The only reason that Justin Turner gets to be compared to Morrow is because of the very nice start to his season. He has led the Mets most of the way this season which speaks to how poorly the rest of the team is playing. For much of the year, Morrow was also a leader for the Nets. He showed up and competed every night and he is a special shooter. I think that Turner’s specialty is hitting doubles, though I am probably wrong because he still does suck. Also, Morrow is an avid twitter user. I feel like Justin Turner should have a twitter account just by looking at him. I’m sure he does. Any conformation on that Raphi?

Justin Turner and Anthony Morrow

Ronny Paulino and Johan Petro.

This might be my favorite comparison. Both of these guys are fat, lazy losers. Both players were acquired this season by their respective teams and are journeymen. Both of them speak another language (Paulino: Spanish, Petro: French). If Petro played baseball, he would be a catcher. Actually, he would be too lazy and probably just play 1st base, which is I’m sure what Paulino wants to do. Both of these players are also very random. Who cares about Ronny Paulino or Johan Petro? Nobody (except kids in hospitals).

Ronny Paulino and Johan Petro

Nick Evans and Ben Uzoh.

The last men at the end of the bench! Ben Uzoh was the 12th man for the Nets all season, playing very limited minutes and whenever he did play, trying as hard as he possibly could. Nick Evans has been going back and forth between the Mets and AAA for a couple of years now and he is currently the last man on the roster (unless Brad Emaus replaces him). I don’t think that we have seen Evans play yet this year, but when we do it will be the garbagiest of times for the Mets, just like whenever Big Ben Uzoh got his minutes with the Nets.

Ben Uzoh and Nick Evans

Daniel Murphy and Troy Murphy.

This was one of my favorite and easiest comparisons. First of all, both of their names are Murphy and they are both Irish (Troy went to Notre Dame). Second of all, they both suck. Surprisingly, we have seen Daniel hit a few home runs this year, including a game winner against the Yankees, but he still sucks. He is rarely clutch and he is a classic disappointing Met. Troy played in a few games for the Nets this season before they got sick of him and told him to stop showing up and eventually traded him. He finished up his season in Boston, which is where I’m sure Daniel wants to be also. I’m sure they are cousins in some way.

Daniel Murphy and Troy Murphy

Ruben Tejada and Mario West.

Both of these players are random, young guys with pretty low expectations. The Nets picked up Mario West after they dropped Q (thank god) and he played a few games for them before he got injured and missed the rest of the season. This didn’t surprise me at all when it happened. He had a few games when he scored 10 points and tried to sit the rest of the games out so that he would be able to stay in the NBA next year. I could see Ruben Tejada trying to do a similar thing with the Mets. He knows he sucks and he just wants to be able to play major league baseball and get paid a lot of money. Neither of these players care about how their team does.

Mario West and Ruben Tejada

Enter to Win!

Attention 2011 graduates! The Nets are giving away some sweet prizes to 2011 high school and college graduates at the website here. The first prize winner gets an exclusive internship (how great is that) with the Nets next year and a gift certificate. The second prize winner gets to bring 15 friends to the Nets practice facility and play ball with the Nets practicers (Allen Iverson will not be in attendance, Ben Uzoh probably will). The third prize winner gets to do that stupid thing before games at the Rock where you get to go on court and give the ball to Sly who then gives it to a referee. You also get free tickets to the game. One of us must win at least one of these prizes. So sign up!

Hopefully one of us.

Nets Offseason Preview

First, I want to say great season Nets. Even though they kind of sucked and had way too many scrubs, the games were fun and entertaining. I will never forget the 2010-2011 New Jersey Nets. Before I preview the offseason and next year, it is of note that it is possible that there will be a lockout in the NBA next year. If this happens, basketball will never be played in New Jersey again and this will be a very sad thing. I hope to see Nets Basketball (experience it) on the court again next year.

Your Current New Jersey Nets

Now on to the offseason. First, I will talk about each player that has an expiring contract and might not be back on the Nets next year.

Dan Gadzuric. GadzZoom somehow got paid over 7 million dollars to play this season and do not expect his next contract to be worth even close to half of that. I hope the Nets do not decide to bring him back because he is awful, but if they do, do not give him more than the veteran’s minimum, which I am too lazy to look up. Bottom line: GadZoom is garbage.

Sasha Vujacic. Sasha was paid more than 5 million to play this season and I don’t expect him to make as much on his next contract. Maybe he can get in the 2 year/4 million a year range. I liked Sasha even though he took some ill-advised shots this year and I would like to see him as a bench player for the Nets. Probably towards the back of the bench, maybe receiving up to 20 minutes a game. I think that Sasha has enjoyed his time in New Jersey because he has gotten playing time and he is close to his girlfriend, Maria Sharapova (I did not know this until a few days ago). Bottom line: I expect to see Sasha in a Nets uniform next season.

Kris Humphries. The Hump is the Nets most important free agent this offseason. He was paid just over 3 million last year and I expect him to get a much bigger contract next season. He has appreciated the Nets giving him playing time and by playing in New Jersey he is close to Kim. Additionally, The Hump has expressed excitement over the move to Brooklyn including visiting the site of the new arena. The Nets may be able to re-acquire Hump this offseason because he has enjoyed playing here. Bottom line: I will be surprised if the Hump does not resign with the Nets this offseason.

Brandan Wright. Brandan has a qualifying offer for next season. I’m not sure what that means, but I don’t expect the Nets to use that qualifying offer which is close to 5 million dollars. Brandan never really fit in with the Nets and I can see him going elsewhere. Bottom line: Because Brandan went to North Carolina, expect him to sign a 5 year/20 million dollar contract with Bob’s Cats.

Ben Uzoh. Big Ben Uzoh had a nice rookie season with the Nets. However, he was undrafted and only signed a one year contract, so he is a free agent. The Nets might like to keep him around, but he is not vital to the team. Bottom line: Expect Big Ben to go anywhere from signing a 5 year contract with the Timberwolves to playing in the D-League, to playing in Europe. Anything is possible!

Stephen Graham. The Nets have a team option to keep The Cracker around next year for over a million dollars. No thank you! Expect the Cracker’s career to be done as no team would ever want him. Bottom line: Goodbye, Cracker!

Mario West. He is a free agent and I see no reason why the Nets should keep him around. Bottom line: He will be lucky to find another NBA team that wants him.

Sean May, Orien Greene, Quinton Ross. The Nets cut all three of these players during the year, but the Nets still had to pay them. Bottom line: None of these players deserve to be in the NBA.

Now, on to the draft. The Nets currently have two picks in this year’s draft. One is the Laker’s pick at the end of the first round and one is at the beginning of the second round. Picks this late in the draft usually do not amount to anything in the NBA and if they do it is usually because a team gets lucky (Example: Landry Fields (who is still overrated)). The Nets need a small forward to replace Travis as soon as possible and if they are unable to sign one in free agency, they should draft one.

Moving on to possible trades for the Nets this offseason. I am not an NBA insider and I do not know what trades are being proposed between NBA teams. There is really only one trade that I think has a chance of happening that I would want to see and I think has a real possibility of happening. This trade would be the Nets’ acquisition of Dwight Howard. Ok, ok, I know this may sound ridiculous at first, but think about it. Dwight Howard will be in the last year of his contract next season, a position similar to the one of Deron Williams. The Magic don’t want either a Lebron situation (where the player leaves with the team not getting anything in return) or a Carmelo situation (where trade rumors hurt the team’s play during the season). The only situation left is the Deron situation (where the team trades the player before any trade rumors happen). This has not worked out for the Jazz because they have been pretty bad since the trade and they are not in the playoffs, but it would probably be better than a Lebron or Carmelo situation for Orlando. And the Nets can give the Magic plenty in return. The centerpiece of the deal would unfortunately have to be Brook Lopez. Brook had a great second half of the season and showed that he can be one of the best NBA centers in the league at times. In addition to Lopez, the magic may want Morrow, The Hump, or the Nets draft picks, which they still have plenty of. This is a trade that really can work, and remember, you heard it first right here at KHH.

If this trade was to happen, there would be a great chance of both Deron and Dwight (we will refer to them as the Double D’s (derivative?) if this happens) signing extensions to stay with the Nets long term, which would be the ultimate goal of the franchise. I know that this is a long shot, but this would be my dream.

Double D's-My Ultimate Dream

From all of us here at KHH, we wish the Nets a good offseason, good draft, and good free agency. See you next year!

More Photos

Photos taken from Yahoo.com. Click the link to see the photos in larger size.

James Johnson to the Hoop

Nice Team Defense

Brook quality D

Douglas and Uzoh are very similar.

Travis Turnover

Great Matchup

Nets-Bob’s Cats Recap

The last home game of the season sure was a memorable one. It featured tons of garbage time from both teams and a buzzer-beater at the end. Let’s first start from the beginning. After ditching seminar at lunch, Raphi and I showed up early for the first time at a Nets game this year. We got to see some of the Nets’ stars warm up as you can see in my photos below. We got autographs from Sasha and just missed getting autographs from Travis and Brook. When the game finally started, hilariousness ensued. I’m just going to name everyone who started and this will give you an idea how terrible the game was: Gerald Henderson, DJ Augustin, Kwame Brown, Boris Diaw, Daunte Cunningham, Sasha, Jordan, Brook, Cracker, and GadZoom. For the second time this season, (after the Timberwolves game) we didn’t have to wait for garbage time to see joke players.

Now I will talk about some of the more hilarious moments from the game:

• In the first quarter, The Cracker air-balled an open corner jumper, the only shot that he has ever made. I guess tonight wasn’t his night.
• Also in the first, GadZoom had a sick jam with attitude. He threw it down and did not let it come back.
• Some funny matchups: Big Ben Uzoh vs. Garrett Temple, The Pet vs. Kwame Brown, GadZoom vs. Boris Diaw, The Cracker vs. Dominic McGuire, Matt Carroll (he doesn’t need a matchup, he’s funny enough on his own)
• The guy sitting in the row above us was similar to us in that he was making fun of all of the players and knew that it was a horrible game. He had some funny comments including calling Petro “Bum-tro”.
• The halftime singing competition featured the most talent that we saw tonight. (Just a side note: I was right that the little boy in the hat would win)
• When we tried to move down in the fourth quarter, the security guard made us go back to our seats. On the last game of the season? Really? What an asshole.

On to the plot of the game. This was a disgustingly played game overall and neither team wanted to win. Because of this, neither team was able to pull away and take a big lead. So basically, the game was extremely boring in terms of will-to-win until the final seconds. I will now take you there. The Nets were behind for most of the fourth quarter and needed some great plays by Brook to get back into the game. However, their defense was horrible and they were down by 3 with 10.7 seconds to go. It was Sasha time and he made a quick three coming off a timeout to tie up the game. You can see this in the video posted below. However, Sasha gave Bob’s Cats too much time and DJ Augustin made a sick cross-over and nailed a jumper with less than 2 seconds remaining. The Nets, without any timeouts, had to inbound to Lopez at halfcourt who was unable to get off a shot. It was a disappointing loss for the Nets, but nobody honestly cares.

Now on to the positives of the game for the Nets:

• Sasha and Jordan both played well, finishing with 19 and 20 points respectively while Sasha added a game-tying 3 and Jordan added 9 assists.
• Brook finished with 31 points, 9 less than I predicted (but he still has one more chance on Wednesday to get 40). It was still a good game for Brook and he was able to dominate Kwame Brown in the fourth quarter.
• Brandon Wright had 10 points on 5-5 shooting in 20 minutes. Pretty good night from him.
• Big Ben Uzoh finished with 8 points. I wish he had posted in double figures, but 8 is not bad.
• Every Net that played scored (even though half of them didn’t play).

After the game ended, for the first time this season, we went to where our real, purchased seats were instead of where are fake, moving down seats were. In order to even get close to our real seats, we had to walk up a countless amount of stairs, and we still weren’t even at the top. Here is a picture of the Rock from the upper deck:

The Rock From Above

I am so happy that we never had to actually sit in these seats.

After a disgusting Newark train station pizza, we were finally back home, never to return to Newark again until next year. It truly is a sad day, and I have cherished going to these terrible games all season long. These are some of the things that I will miss:

• Raphi not arriving to the 79th street subway on time
• Buying train tickets and running to catch the train
• The Popcorn Hallway
• The walk to retirement where I think that I will be murdered or kidnapped
• Garbage time at games
• Evenings of culture
• Booing the refs
• Sneaking into good seats
• Winning shoes
• DWill’s passes
• Sasha’s 3’s
• Brook’s dunks
• Hump’s blocks
• Travis’s and Cracker’s missed open jumpers
• Kim’s boobs
• Petro’s petroness
• Newark pizza
• The 9:39 train

Expect a full recap of the Nets’ season as well as an offseason preview coming within the next few days. Until then, I leave you with just a few of the programs of the many games which we attended.

Goodbye, Nets

It is finally time for us to retire from going to The Rock.

Nets-Bob’s Cats Preview

Bob’s Cats

Tonight’s matchup between the Nets and the Bobcats is sure to be a disgusting one. To start, here is a list of the players that will likely miss the game due to injury (or not caring): Desagna Diop, Stephen Jackson, Shaun Livingston, Eduardo Najera, Joel Przybilla, Tyrus Thomas, Sundiyata Gaines, Kris Humphries, Deron Williams, Anthony Morrow, and Damien James. Even though there are tons of joke players on that list, tonight’s game will be sure to include some as well. For starters, Bob’s Cat’s starting center is Kwame Brown. Wow. That’s all I have to say to that. Also to see close to 40 minutes of playing time are Gerald Henderson and Boris Diaw. I’m sorry, but Boris is a grandpa name. I have no respect for you.

Moving over to the Nets side of the ball, expect big minutes tonight from Big Ben Uzoh. Despite injuring his knee last night against Toronto, this game will be too big for him to miss. After The Cracker scored a season high 7 points last night, expect him to start again in the home season finale. GadZoom might also get a start. I am worried.

Now I want to talk about some of the history between the Nets and Bob’s Cats, and it is disgusting. When these two teams play, either team rarely reaches 100 points. In the three previous matchups this season, it has never happened. Also, the Nets snapped their 0-18 start last season by beating Bob’s Cats. I was there and it was a glorious night. Expect more of the same disgusting basketball tonight.

Bold prediction of the game: Brook Lopez will finally score 40 points. He has come very close to doing this recently since DWill decided not to play anymore because he is the Nets only, and I repeat only offensive option. Tonight, he will be matched up with Kwame Brown and it is the season finale. He has nothing to play for and has an easy matchup, so why shouldn’t he drop 40? Additionally, the Nets want to see big numbers from Lopez and give him big minutes, possibly because they want to showcase him to other teams, but I will talk about that more in my Nets Offseason Preview article coming on Thursday.

Prediction: With 12,000 people in attendance, the Nets will defeat the Bobcats 93-89. It will be a happy ending to a disgusting season.

Health: Mario West Separates Shoulder

According to NJ.com, Mario West has a separated left shoulder and his season is over. This news comes a few hours after “SuperMario” signed a contract extension with the Nets throughout the remainder of the season.

Mr. West joins Anthony Morrow, Sundiata Gaines, Deron Williams, Kris Humphries, and Damion James on the growing list of injured Nets players whose offseasons have already begun.

In other news, Ben Uzoh banged his right knee on the court during the 4th quarter of tonight’s Nets – Raptors game and immediately left for the locker room and did not return. Apparently, Uzoh is fine and should expect to see a lot more minutes now that he is the only healthy bench guard left on the Nets roster.

Read my reaction to these disasters, after the jump.