Trietley: A closer look at who to blame for the Nets’ near-historic season

Find yourself a copy of the NBA standings.

Start at the top. The Cavaliers have a… Find yourself a copy of the NBA standings.

Start at the top. The Cavaliers have a three-game lead on the Lakers for the NBA’s best record.

Scroll down a little. Oklahoma City, San Antonio and Portland are battling it out for sixth place in the West.

A little bit farther. The Houston Rockets are clinging to slim playoff hopes. The Hornets, Warriors, 76ers and Wizards have all been mathematically eliminated from the postseason as their disappointing seasons near an end.

Now keep going. Pass the gaping ravine, cut through the forest of NBA irrelevance and open the door of ineptitude.

A few miles after that and you’ll find the New Jersey Nets, proud owners of a 9-64 record on the year.

Had the Nets not won consecutive games against Sacramento and Detroit last week — something they hadn’t done all year — they could have contended for the worst record all time. The Philadelphia 76ers finished 9-73 in 1973, and the Boston Celtics edged them out for the division by 59 games.

Unfortunately, the 2010 Nets’ .123 winning percentage puts them just 48 games behind Cleveland in the Eastern Conference. They were eliminated from playoff contention almost a month ago. Not even the Pirates get knocked out that early. Come on, even the Knicks are still alive.

Washington, the team directly ahead of New Jersey in the East, is on a 15-game losing streak. The Wizards haven’t won since Feb. 28, yet they still have a 13½ game lead on the Nets. Mark your calendar: the two teams play April 4.

Of course, Washington’s 15-game losing streak pales in comparison to New Jersey’s 18-gamer to start the year. It started out as a funny sports story, but it grew increasingly embarrassing. When the Nets finally won a game — against Charlotte, 97-91 — in December, the coverage went away, but that didn’t stop the Nets from putting up two more double-digit losing streaks before January ended.

Some joked that Charlotte has to pin a scarlet “L” on its jerseys for the rest of the season.

There’s no shame in being a Nets fan, though. Every franchise has its down year. New Jersey is simply filling the role of the laughably bad sports team for now. The Chicago Cubs stepped in for a while, but then they spent money. Philadelphia in general did nicely for about 20 years, but then the Phillies ruined everything.

There’s only one problem. The Nets don’t have a curse.

Every perennial loser has a curse. The Boston Red Sox had the Curse of the Bambino rule strong for 86 years. Philadelphia had the Curse of Billy Penn, which doomed the city for building a skyscraper taller than city hall. Chicago still uses an actual goat as a scapegoat.

It can’t simply be the Nets’ fault that the Nets are 9-64. Some ghost, some angry beer vendor, some hex from a disgruntled usher is to blame. What doomed the Nets?

Let’s look at the roster first. The Nets start Devin Harris, Yi Jianlian, Brook Lopez, Trenton Hassell and Courtney Lee.

Lopez is known for his time at Stanford with his twin brother Robin. The Nets, though, only have Brook on their roster. Could this be the Curse of the Separated Twins? Sadly, it isn’t that simple. The Phoenix Suns have been fine with only Robin.

Former coach Lawrence Frank led the Nets to an 0-16 start before he was fired, but the blame doesn’t lay on him for the Nets losing more games than some MLB teams. Most members of the media acknowledged New Jersey’s talent-lacking lineup at the time of his firing.

But you can’t fire the players, so maybe the curse is in the front office, with general manager Kiki Vandeweghe jinxing the franchise.

The team hired him in 2007, the last time it posted a winning record. After all, Vandeweghe never won an NCAA Championship or an NBA championship as a player, and he also once drafted Nikoloz Tskitishvili fifth overall. Sounds like a curse.

Or maybe the curse goes deeper. Technology is everywhere these days — did a disgruntled television producer curse the team that airs on his network? It sounds nice, but unfortunately the Nets play on the YES Network, home to the 173-time world champion New York Yankees.

A curse on the home arena — like the Cubs’ Curse of the Billy Goat — also fails for this reason. The Devils had no problem winning three Stanley Cups playing in the Izod Center, formerly the Continental Airlines Arena. It also doesn’t explain the Nets’ 4-33 road record.

In the end, any good curse comes from the top. The Nets are owned by a business group that includes rapper Jay-Z. With no other reason why the Nets are playing so poorly, I have to look at some of his rap lyrics, which might have inadvertantly done the trick: I got 99 problems, but a struggling basketball franchise with no leadership or talent ain’t one.

Sounds like a jinx to me.