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Bruce Ratner to blame for New Jersey Nets' poor start?


Warren2ThaG
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Bruce Ratner to blame for New Jersey Nets' poor start?

The New Jersey Nets have lost 14 games in a row and starting to get a little too close for comfort to the league record for most losses to start a season. That record of 17 is shared by the 1988 Miami Heat and the 1999 Los Angeles Clippers.

 

It would be easy to blame coach Lawrence Frank or the injuries the club has suffered, but former Net Kenyon Martin is apparently thinking there is one person who should accept what he's done, according to the New York Daily News: current owner Bruce Ratner.

 

Martin, who plays for the Denver Nuggets now, is saying Ratner started the team on a downward spiral right after the team made the NBA Finals in 2002 and 2003. "When you let people who have never played the game of basketball make decisions, that's what you get," said Martin. "Bruce Ratner came in and made decisions and it affected everything from that point on. The blame for that has to go somewhere. It can't always be on the players."

 

Perhaps Martin is still bumming that Ratner wouldn't give him the money he wanted for a long-term deal six years ago just after Ratner came aboard. "It's been six years now but it still pops up, just 'What if they would have made the right decision?' " Martin said. "It just seems like when I left it was just downhill from there, and we had something good."

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http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/basketball/2009/11/24/2009-11-24_kenyon_martin_ratner_made_net_mess.html

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K-Mart's not the only one.

 

"It is an unfortunate situation, but that is funny how things happen," Kidd told the Daily News Tuesday before boarding the Mavericks' charter flight to New Jersey. "Why would it be me coming to play them on Wednesday and not K-Mart (Kenyon Martin) or Richard (Jefferson)? It's an awkward situation. We all helped to turn that franchise around. Now to see where it is at today and history and not the right kind of history, it's unfortunate."

 

"I think you could see it developing when it started with K-Mart and Lucious (Harris) and Kerry (Kittles) and the pieces not being replaced," Kidd said of several key players from the Finals teams who were traded or released.

 

"It's just one after another. It (the Net'' downfall) was something that was going to eventually happen. It reminded me of when I was with Dallas the first time (in the early '90s) and (H. Ross Perot Jr.) bought the team and it wasn't about basketball. It was about a real estate play. That is what happened with the Nets."

 

Full Article

 

We've heard RJ, Martin, and Kidd all make comments about the Nets front office after they left.

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