Putting the Nyet in the New Jersey Nets! Deron Williams . . . Turkey?

I never thought NPR was a good venue for the sports stories that almost inevitably provoke my snooze reflex, but . . . . .

On Friday National Public Radio’s “All Thing Considered” played a story about the prospect that the NBA basketbal season might be cancelled because of a labor dispute. Sportswriter Stefan Fatsis told his interviewer, NPR’s Guy Raz:

The latest news is not good, Guy. The league already has postponed the start of training camps, cancelled its preseason. Now it says it's going to cancel the first two weeks of the regular season, which was supposed to start November 1st if no deal is reached by Monday.

And then he got into an example using New Jersey Nets player Deron Williams about how players are going to be drifting off to other locales to make money:

If the regular season games are cancelled, it's going to be the first work stoppage in the NBA since 1998 and I think then you're going to start to see players get on planes and go to Europe so that they can play some basketball and make some money.

One NBA star already got to work there this week, Deron Williams of the New Jersey Nets. He made his debut from Besiktas Milangaz of Turkey. He scored just seven points. He was fouled hard. He was booed mercilessly in a road loss to a Belgian team in a tiny and hostile arena.

The NBA guys are going to find that it's not quite as welcoming in Europe as it might be on their home courts.

(See: With NBA Season In Jeopardy, WNBA Plays On, October 7, 2011.)

I guess I can feel for some poor lonely bloke getting “booed mercilessly” when he is away on foreign soil. Nevertheless, I am not a fan of professional sports in general* and am myself booing mercilessly the construction for the Nets of the Ratner/Prokhorov (“Barclays”) arena, all the wretched connivances behind it and all the public detriment it will bring. If an NBA player’s strike lasts long enough or can otherwise effect a toppling of Messrs. Ratner and Prokhorov’s publicly financed arena bonds I'll be thrilled. When it comes to booing or cheering locales, brownstone Brooklyn is where I don't want to see the Net's players deployed.

(* See: Friday, September 24, 2010, Sports Culture Capper: Yankees, Professional Sports and Criminals Wearing Yankee Hats.)