One of the most useless things in sport is the basketball net. But Big Net has convinced us that we need this little extra in the game of basketball. Never mind that the game can be played exactly the same way and result in exactly the same score without those nets.
I looked on the site of one of the Big Net producers and in all their copy, only two reasons were brought up for having a net. The big one seemed to be the swish sound that an accurately thrown basketball made when a basket was completed. This was mentioned a few times.
Mentioned only once in all that copy was the 2nd reason people might like to have a basketball net. That is the ball is more likely to come down through the rim in an almost straight down fashion. Never once mentioning that with most baskets, the ball comes down relatively straight, too. The net makes a difference but it is only slight.
Then there is a whole basketball team named after this useless decoration in basketball – the Brooklyn Nets. Maybe they took the name thinking that it would remind people of the swish of a successfully finished basket by the team. But if this were true, why not call the team the Swishes? Likely they were named the Nets to rhyme with the New York Mets and the New York Jets.
But wait. Maybe they were named the Nets because of the similarity of the players with those same actual nets. When a Brooklyn Nets player is stuffed, don’t they make the sound “BRAAAP!” And just like the fans hearing the swish, the cook for the Brooklyn Nets player is happy to hear this sound of appreciation.
Furthermore, when a Brooklyn Nets player is stuffed and has to let something out, it is always done straight down over a toilet. That, too, is very similar to an actual basketball net’s action.
In fact you could call each Brooklyn Nets player a Big Net. After all, professional basketball players are always big. But this just ends up confusing the situation when I am railing against Big Net.
Let’s just finish by saying that the Brooklyn Nets have never won the playoffs, thus making them as useless as their namesake in the game of basketball.
