This is what happens when you stake your personality on one-fifteenth of one percent.
Image by Lucy Nicholson / Reuters
When you think of the Brooklyn Nets, the first thing you think of is Jay-Z. Even if it's not — even if the first thing you think of is Brooklyn, or the first thing you think of is the color scheme, or the first thing you think of is the Barclays Center, Jay-Z is implicit in what you're thinking about: he either played a role in creating it, or he was a major part of the branding. The deal the Nets franchise made with the public when it moved to New York's largest borough this season was that the Nets represented cool, and they represented cool because of the God MC.
Well, the God MC Is Dead, at least as far as the Nets are concerned. Jay-Z, aka Shawn Carter, aka Hova, aka Beyoncé's Husband, just started a sports agency, and in order to represent basketball players, he plans on selling off his one-fifteenth-of-one-percent share in the team, Yahoo's Adrian Wojnarowski reports. What does this mean for the Nets? It means that the one cool thing about them no longer exists. But don't the Nets have other cool qualities? No. Why? Because the other cool qualities had to do with Jay-Z, and the qualities that didn't have to do with Jay-Z aren't cool.
Brooklyn: NOT COOL. In the era of Girls and artisanal pickles and the Brooklyn "brand," you can't just be "Brooklyn" — you have to be a certain flavor of Brooklyn. The only flavor of Brooklyn the Nets are left with now is the chalky aftertaste of sadness in the mouths of the people whose land Bruce Ratner stole to build the Barclays Center.
Source: aaccessmaps.com