"Soulless", "Cowards", "Disgrace": Nets Getting Roasted In All Quarters

The Brooklyn Nets — and the NBA — are facing serious backlash from all corners of not only the sports world, but everywhere else as well for allowing disgraced and suspended head coach Ime Udoka to circumvent his suspension with the Boston Celtics by taking the Nets head coaching job—as soon as today, reports Insider Adrian Wojnarowski.

The New York Post backpage sports headline summed up what a lot of people are thinking amidst this latest tone-deaf Nets move, slapping the word DISGRACE over a burning Nets logo.  

The backpage: DISGRACE! https://t.co/jHJFr7THfT pic.twitter.com/wVjxNx4e0U

— New York Post Sports (@nypostsports) November 2, 2022

Citing the firing of Steve Nash, the hiring of "shamed and suspended Udoka", and allowing Kyrie Irving to keep playing despite pushing antisemitic tropes on his social media, they summed it up by calling the franchise a "disgrace."

Mike Rosenberg of Sports Illustrated calls the Nets "cowards" in his opinion piece. 

Between Kyrie Irving’s recent antisemitic tweets, the now-fired Steve Nash’s defense of him, and the franchise’s likely hiring of Ime Udoka, Brooklyn has become a mess created by cowardice, @Rosenberg_Mike writes https://t.co/gTvBobh1Wu

— Sports Illustrated (@SInow) November 2, 2022

"Between Kyrie Irving’s recent antisemitic tweets, the now-fired Steve Nash’s defense of him, and the franchise’s likely hiring of Ime Udoka, Brooklyn has become a mess created by cowardice," says Rosenberg.

Rob Mahoney in The Ringer calls the Nets "soulless" and a "sh*tshow."

The shitshow continues apace in Brooklyn: https://t.co/wRzvZHhatX

— Rob Mahoney (@RobMahoney) November 1, 2022

"The sh*tshow continues apace in Brooklyn," Mahoney writes. "Can you really solve one calamity with another?... All in the name of saving what looks to be a pretty soulless endeavor."

He continues: "The ethics of even hiring Udoka are thorny and unclear, to say the least—and to say nothing of inviting the subject of a massive, intra-organizational scandal to make sense of another chaotic situation.

"The Brooklyn Nets aren’t just the greatest sh*t show in the NBA, but a sh*t show so colossal as to have its own gravitational pull—to perpetuate bizarre decisions in a kind of relentless feedback loop, turning bad to worse to truly inexplicable."

Kelsey Russo in The Athletic writes that by letting Udoka—suspended by the Celtics for inappropriate transgressions with female employees—take the Nets' job, the Celtics are "turning their backs on those very (female) employees whom they said they’d protect.

"And what about the Nets? Did they even think about the women who work in their organization and how they would be affected by such a hire? Hiring Udoka is a slap in the face to all of those women and women everywhere."

The Nets hiring Ime Udoka, at this moment in time, on its own would be incredibly disappointing, cynical and a mistake. In light of the Kyrie situation… just a giant blowtorch to values and connecting with your fan base. What are you trying to accomplish as an organization?

— Ben Couch (@viewfromcouch) November 1, 2022

It's hard to say who looks worse in all this—Irving, the Nets, Ukoka or the NBA. Let's call it even: all of them are equally responsible for the mess they and the league are in. 

Photo: Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports