As The Athletic continues to roll out data from its annual anonymous player poll, the Brooklyn Nets continue to make waves in it — sized somewhere between tidal and ripple.
Last week, Nets head coach Jordi Fernández and forward Michael Porter Jr. each were each top-of-mind among anonymous players voting in the survey conducted by the New York Times subsidiary. Today, it’s the fans and the city many of them call home.
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The Barclays Center
Early in the survey, The Athletic asked players which arena has the most passionate and obnoxious fans. The word choice sure is interesting, as I’m sure most New York natives would describe any rambunctious Knick fan behavior as “passionate,” while someone in Beantown would prefer “obnoxious.” If you switch roles, you’ll get the same thing.
Nevertheless, the Barclays Center crowd wasn’t a top vote getter for either category, but it was mentioned to have received votes in each. The Brooklyn crowd earned 0.06% of the total votes casted for “obnoxious” and “passionate.” The TD Garden and MSG crowds were both top three in both categories.
Giannis & Trade Interest
The only question where Brooklyn polled as a top answer asked players what would be the first team on their hypothetical no-trade list. The Nets accumulated the fifth most votes (5%), trailing the Memphis Grizzlies (35.8%), Washington Wizards (11.7%), Sacramento Kings (10.8%), New Orleans Pelicans (6.7%). The Utah Jazz also earned 5% of the votes.
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With those teams being six of the bottom-seven finishers this past season, it’s clear NBA players just want to be somewhere they can win and/or getter better tans or avoid taxes. There wasn’t any breakdown of reasons why.
At the same time, we can’t pretend like the poll wasn’t the greatest look for New York City. Even with the Knicks now in the Eastern Conference Finals, they were only a few pegs down from Brooklyn as a top-10 finisher, securing 3.3% of the votes.
The Nets and Knicks also received some attention when the survey asked players about Giannis Antetokounmpo’s next home. Most voters expect the Greek Freak to say in Milwaukee, which 45.7% of the votes. Miami came in second place with 23.2% of the votes, followed by New York at 16.6%. The Nets were again mentioned to have received votes, even if not a large percentage, which calculated to 0.07% this time.
The poll got responses between 120 and 161 players, around a quarter of the players on NBA rosters.
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