Littman: Let’s hope Nets win the title of most losses

With 12 games to go in the season, the New Jersey Nets are on the brink of history,… With 12 games to go in the season, the New Jersey Nets are on the brink of history, gloriously horrendous history.

Heading into tonight’s game against the Sacramento Kings, the Nets stand at 7-63. Or rather, sit at 7-63, as standing implies being somewhat active.

Better yet, lay at 7-63.

The most losses in one season in NBA history occured back in the 1972-73 season, when the Philadelphia 76ers went 9-73. That year, the 76ers lost their first 15 games and later lost 20 straight.

The Nets started off strong this year, losing their first 18 games, a first in NBA history. Then they went on a run, winning three of their next 14 before losing 13 of their following 14 games in January. And the season has pretty much followed this pattern of lose around 10 in row, win one and then start losing again.

So now fans of compellingly awful sports records have to hope the Nets can somehow go 1-11, at best, over their last 12 games. It seems mean to root against the Nets, a harmless franchise that has never won an NBA title and can’t shake out of the shadow of their somehow still more dysfunctional neighbor, the New York Knicks. It wouldn’t be getting ahead of yourself to say the most famous person involved with the Nets over the past decade was TJ Kidd.

Sure, those who like to follow records more positive stories to look to, like the Connecticut women’s basketball team’s current winning streak that spans back to last season, the longest in collegiate women’s basketball history.

But there’s something more entertaining about rooting for records demonstrating incompetence. That’s why the first half hour of sports movies are always the best, when half of the team is playing a sport for the first time, a few kids have asthma and they don’t even have matching uniforms yet.

Plus, when teams or players are pursuing records of excellence, we don’t get scenes like the one that took place Monday night in New Jersey during the Nets’ 98-89 loss to the Miami Heat.

According to the New York Daily News, the Nets were trailing 79-67 after the third quarter when Nets CEO Brett Yormark walked by Chris Lisi, a fan sitting in the second row with a brown paper bag on his head. Now, as any fan of an embarrassingly bad sports season knows, it’s tradition for fans to come to games with bags over their heads so as to not be seen actually attending and supporting this team.

Well, Yormark reportedly asked Lisi why he was wearing the bag, and Lisi answered “Because the Nets are so good.” The Daily News didn’t put any emphasis on the word “so,” but I like to imagine he dragged that word out, played around with the inflection of it and let the delicious sarcasm ooze out of his mouth.

Then, as the Daily News reported, “Yormark snapped at him. Neither Lisi nor his companion, who joined in the shouting match, is a season-ticket holder, and they seemed to be unaware of whom they were arguing with.”

Yes, the CEO of the team yelling at fans courtside during a game in which the Nets are trailing by 12. That’s not happening at a Connecticut game.

But if you aren’t completely convinced that this is a disaster season for New Jersey, let’s once again turn to the Daily News to see how Julian Garcia opened his story. “One of the Nets’ top executives showed more fight Monday night than most of their players have all season.”

And things like that are why we need to collectively root against the Nets these last 12 games. While we can all agree it would’ve been even better if Yormark pulled a Ron Artest, anytime a CEO of a company yells at someone who is supporting his company, at least monetarily, something is going terribly right.

Don’t feel bad for the Nets, though. They’ll get a high draft pick, they have a lot of cap space to sign free agents and some talent. Brook Lopez is arguably the best young center in the league, Devin Harris is an extremely quick and exciting point guard, Courtney Lee and Terrence Williams have shown they can contribute and Yi Jianlian is really tall.

Plus, Jay-Z is a part owner, although this is the most disastrous thing he’s been a part of since Kingdom Come. Perhaps he can scare the Nets opponents before they play by putting embarrassing pictures of them up on the Summer Jam screen.

Here’s who the Nets play to close out the season with those teams’ records in parentheses: Kings (24-47), Pistons (23-47), Bulls (33-37), Spurs (42-27), Suns (45-26), Hornets (34-48), Wizards (21-47), Bucks (39-30), Bulls, Pacers (24-46), Bobcats (35-34) and Heat (37-34).

Clearly, there are some other bad teams in that bunch. You also have to factor in that it’s the end of the season, so a lot of those teams out of playoff contention might not put forth much of an effort. And to try and avoid the record, the Nets will likely still give each game their best effort.

It hasn’t helped them much up to this point, and let’s hope it doesn’t for 12 more games.