The Brooklyn Nets entered the All-Star break on a high note, as they won 10 of their last 11 contests. That was mostly accomplished without Kevin Durant, who’s been nursing a hamstring injury and doesn’t have a definitive timetable to return to action.
Amazingly enough, the vibe surrounding Brooklyn grew even more positive when they signed Blake Griffin over the weekend after he agreed to a buyout with Detroit.
When you consider Griffin’s shooting regression and lengthy injury history (especially to his knees), this is undoubtedly a risky signing for the Nets. However, GM Sean Marks will make out like a genius if the 31-year-old veteran is productive in his projected role off the bench.
Though Griffin isn’t close to the human highlight reel he was in the prime, this acquisition confirms that the Nets now have four (!) star-caliber players on their roster, which begs a pertinent question.
https://twitter.com/BrooklynNets/status/1368955051599949827
Are the Nets the NBA’s villain now that they’ve signed Blake Griffin?
In our eyes, the answer is an unequivocal yes. For starters, there was already a cluster of pundits and fans showing a clear bias against the Nets before the James Harden trade. That narrative, as you might assume, was amplified ten-fold after that deal was completed and they traded away some of their finest homegrown talents like Caris LeVert and Jarrett Allen.
Furthermore, fans already enjoy rooting against Kyrie Irving because of his enigmatic personality and history of abandoning his teammates and throwing them under the bus (look no further than his widely-panned Celtics tenure) when faced with adversity, so that checks out.
Kevin Durant, meanwhile, was the undisputed villain of the NBA after he signed with the 73-win Warriors, but that script flipped when Durant went down with his Achilles injury in Game 5 of the 2019 NBA Finals. He has subsequently become a fan favorite in light of his triumphant return to the hardwood this season, during which he’s averaging 29.0 points, 7.3 rebounds and 5.3 assists on 52.4% shooting.
Blake Griffin is wearing No. 2 with the Nets. The six-time All-Star will earn $1.2M for the remainder of the season with Brooklyn.
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) March 8, 2021
However, as much as Durant cancels out Irving in terms of making Brooklyn palatable, he simply cannot do the same with Harden, who left most basketball fans with a sour taste in their mouths after he showed up to preseason out of shape, violated health and safety protocols, and disparaged his Rockets teammates all in an effort to force his way out of Houston.
Even before his controversial departure, Harden was very much a polarizing figure across the NBA landscape, as his ball-dominant style of play while getting seemingly every foul call on drives (on top of fizzling out in the playoffs) made him an easy target for pundits and analysts.
Add Griffin to the mix and there’s really no other choice for the villain label. That isn’t to say he’s detested by fans, but he certainly isn’t remembered fondly in Los Angeles for failing to deliver a championship during the “Lob City” era. He certainly isn’t the most revered player in the NBA, either.
ESPN story on Blake Griffin agreeing to deal with Brooklyn for rest of season: https://t.co/FjFVb6S876
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) March 8, 2021
Folks will always root against LeBron James, but the Lakers pale in comparison to Brooklyn as far as being easy to root against after their title last year. We would even argue that the Clippers are more villain material than the Lakers after they load-managed their way through the regular season only to blow a 3-1 lead to the Nuggets in the conference semifinals.
The Jazz continually playing the victim card doesn’t resonate with fans, but do we really care about them enough to pin them as the villains? No way. As for everybody else in the West, the likes of Phoenix, Portland, Denver, and Dallas all have stars who fans gravitate towards.
We don’t make the rules, but the Griffin signing without a doubt confirms that the Nets are the 2020-21 villains of the NBA, so for their sake let’s hope they use the game-by-game critique as motivation to send a statement to the rest of the league.
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