Dwight Howard to New Jersey Nets?!? Don't Do It!

It’s not easy being a New Jersey Nets fan.

We spend our NBA seasons looking for glimmers of hope that the next year will be better than the current year.

We look to the draft for ways our team can improve, yet year after year, save for a few decent picks, the improvement just never happens.

We had the Jason Kidd years, which were fantastic. I hadn’t had that much fun watching the Nets since the days of Drazen Petrovic.

From Derrick Coleman’s single All-Star season to Alonzo Mourning getting the hell out of Dodge—and everything before and after—we just can’t catch a break.

But, like the blind sports fan I am, the arrival of Deron Williams and Brook Lopez has given me reason to believe in the future of the Nets.

But the Nets are leaving the Garden State for nouveau-riche Brooklyn and I declared myself ready to drop the team that dropped my state.

Now it has been announced that Dwight Howard is favoring being traded to the Nets. I have a thought on this:

DON’T DO IT!!!!

The NBA lockout helped me get my NCAA basketball groove back on. I would have watched college baskets anyway, but I would have definitely split some of the time for NBA games, especially the Nets. The lockout reminded me how much more I love college basketball than the NBA and inspired me to write this.

The veto of the Chris Paul deal further cemented my current displeasure with the NBA and then I had to stumble upon the ESPN ticker, notifying me of the potential deal for Howard, which would consist of the Nets giving up Brook Lopez plus two first-round picks to the Orlando Magic.

This would definitely make the Nets better and would give us all the hope that we have been fighting the feeling of for so long.

Forget the draft picks—Howard and Williams together gives the Nets something it hasn’t had since Jason Kidd wore the red, white and blue, a reason to want to come to the Nets.

Draft picks are one way to build a team, but today’s NBA is going a decidedly different direction. Players now decide on whichever team will be the “it” team and whichever star gets signed first becomes the de facto general manager and draws whichever free-agent talent he wants.

This is going to make me watch the Nets again and it’s not what I want. I was happy with college basketball. I was happy knowing I wasn’t missing anything with the Nets. Now, should the Howard trade go through, I will feel compelled to watch this team.

It’s not fair.

No matter what the Nets do, they are going to break my heart. I know this, now. I can live with it because they don’t build me up like they used to.

Now they’re teasing me and filling me with dreams of success and I just don’t want to feel the impact of the fall, which I know will happen.

Why can’t the Nets just leave me be?