Super-Overreactionizer: The Wizards, Thunder, Blazers, and Nets should just give up

The Nets Fuel Tank on Empty

By Robby Kalland (@RKalland)

It was fun while it lasted, but the Nets season is over.

Brooklyn was like a reunion tour of your favorite band to celebrate their 25th anniversary. Sure, it’s still the stars you loved growing up — Garnett, Pierce, Johnson, Williams — but they’re just not the same. They can’t play as fast as they once did, the instruments are a little out of tune, and the singer’s lost his voice.

It was a fun idea, but never had the chance to produce the same kind of music they once did.

The Nets should’ve seen this coming before the season even started, putting together a group of aging stars on fat contracts together rarely works — ask the 2004 Lakers. Garnett and Pierce have fallen apart physically, although on rare occasion they’ll show a shimmer of their once shining greatness before crashing back to reality. Johnson is still what he was in Atlanta, but that’s just not a player capable of carrying a team deep in the postseason. Meanwhile Williams is a step slow and struggles to keep everything together and running smoothly on the offensive end.

The Nets looked dead in the water after the first two games in Miami, but showed a flicker of life in Game 3 and a bit in Game 4 before LeBron James came out and shut the door with 49 points.

Three or four years ago, one of the Nets’ Big 4 would’ve stepped up in the fourth quarter of Game 4 and willed the team to victory. Pierce and Garnett wouldn’t have just allowed LeBron to torch them, but this isn’t the Pierce and Garnett of old.

This is just the Pierce and Garnett that got old.

All the playoff experience in the world doesn’t mean anything if it can’t be applied to the court, and Brooklyn is just out of gas. They’re fighters and won’t quit by any means, even though they probably should. Garnett and Pierce will insist on battling to the end — an end that is very near — but it’s just not going to be enough. If LeBron was able to go on the road and drop 49, the Heat won’t have any problem sending the Nets packing after Game 5 back in Miami.

Considering most of the Nets should call it quits after this season, it’s somewhat poetic that their season will end in Florida where they’ll have plenty of retirement home options to choose from.