What happened on a Wednesday night two weeks ago was typical of the New Jersey Nets’ season. Playing the Philadelphia 76’ers on the road, the NBA’s Eastern conference’s best team, the Nets were winning the majority of the game and outplaying one of the elite teams in the NBA when the wheels fell off.
Taking a six-point lead into the fourth quarter was not enough. Five minutes into the deciding quarter, their lead was replaced with a five-point deficit, and for all intents and purposes the game was over.
Such is the life-long frustration of a Nets fan, a promising start only to be replaced by injury and reality. In that vein, two Nets fans started a new web site out of their Hoboken apartments and dedicated it to the struggles and disappointments of the average Nets fan.
“We know our team is not very good,” said JoeNetsFan.com co-founder Shawn “Champagne” Belschwender in an interview last week. “So what we want to do is give the fan the total experience of going to the game. ‘Cause much of the time what’s going on in the stands is more interesting than what’s happening on the court.”
JoeNetsFan (the site’s namesake, a.k.a. Mike Kozlowski), and his sidekick, Champagne, are season ticket holders who rant and rave about everything from the quality of the hot dogs and the antics of the cheerleaders to the size of forward Keith Van Horn’s feet.
Recently, the two were lucky enough to nab a couple of seats that were almost courtside for a game against the Washington Wizards. From their newfound perspective, they went on a diatribe about the conditions when one is that close to the court.
“Smells like a hamster cage down here,” Champagne wrote on the site.
Since the two rarely sit that close, they were discovering aspects of the game they were not expecting. Kozlowski later analyzed that the reason for the smell was, “something to do with the boards of the hockey rink that we sat in front of, along with the scattered peanut shells stuck to the ice underneath us. It lent a ‘locker room’ whiff to the game we really weren’t looking for.”
In that same beaten down yet humorous way, the duo finds other things amiss about being so close to the court. One of the things that they were looking forward to was being close to where the Nets’ cheerleaders where to dance. But again, like most things associated with the Nets season, they were disappointed.
“Sorry, fellas, we regret to inform you of yet another classic case of fantasy exceeding reality,” said Kozlowski on the website about actually being close to the cheerleaders. “Most of these women just looked sad and tired, as if cheering for a second-rate Eastern Division team is just not worth the effort in the 58th game.”
Champagne said, “It’s hard to fake a giddy demeanor when your identity is pegged to a 20-38 team.”
Still about basketball
But in the end, despite all the their musings, this site is about basketball.
The two deconstruct every game in a readable and very fan-friendly way. They have their favorite players whom they follow, give their perceptive about team trends and have updated reports about injuries (which the Nets have plenty of) and trade rumors that might be circulating.
In a discussion of the game against the 76’ers Wednesday, Joe broke down the play. “The Nets played a strong, tough, dominating game for the first 40 minutes against the NBA’s toughest home court team, but once again they fall short as the Sixers were simply able to outlast them,” he wrote. “Allen Iverson scored 38, but really wasn’t a huge factor until the fourth quarter bomb-blast. And they were hammered on the boards by the Sixers’ 41-28 margin, even though the Nets time and time again outscored the Sixers on the fast break.”
In addition to acute game analysis, the site provides an excellent list of links to other sites that Nets fans might be interested in.
“This is a fan’s site,” Champagne said, “and while it may be easier to add a little humor when the team is horrible, we would love for the team to get good.”