Brooklyn Nets: The Barclays Center has become the saddest place in sports

The Brooklyn Nets are the most aggravating team in the NBA right now, but this isn’t new and their home, the Barclays Center, has slowly become the saddest place in sports.

The Brooklyn Nets had brighter days ahead when it was announced they were moving to Brooklyn to play at the Barclays Center.

After all, Brooklyn had not been home to a professional team since the Dodgers up and left town at the end of 1957.

Even in the early days of the Nets’ tenure things were fine. The Nets were a playoff staple and even won a playoff series, in what feels like a lifetime ago now.

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Now, I have been to Barclays Center before. I’ve been to Islanders games before, I know it was not built for hockey but I have still been inside the building before.

I thought it was nice. I thought it was massive. But, my biggest takeaway with it is that it was really dark.

I do not know how to explain it. Everything is just dark. Most of the seats are black, the outside of the building is black, and the concourse was dark.

I have always been able to understand the direct correlation. Make the building being the color black because the Nets wear black.

However, I never thought the darkness of the Barclays Center would end up being this symbolic, deeper meaning.

The Barclays Center has become the darkest place in sports.

Maybe not quote literally, but symbolically.

This is hardly about the New York Islanders because they are on their way out. In fact, they cannot get out fast enough.

But even when they play there, things are dark. It is empty, it looks strange on TV, and the heart of their fan base dislikes it because it is the complete opposite of Nassau Coliseum where the Isles had their best days in the past and brighter days in the future.

The Barclays Center experiment is 100% necessary for the Islanders to stay in New York but has still been a colossal failure.

But, it was not built for hockey so that gets a pass.

But, no, even the Nets, who the stadium was built for has turned the Barclays Center into the saddest place in sports.

The Factory of Sadness. The Pit of Misery. Sports Jail. Whatever you want to call it.

It was not until Wednesday night’s game against the Thunder that I realized this.

The Nets blew another late fourth-quarter lead, made stupid turnovers, and wasted the last two, most integral possessions of the game.

But, even before the Thunder debacle, things have been putrid for the Nets in their building. At this time of this writing, the Nets are 3-10 at home. That is good enough to be sitting with the most home losses in the entire league this year.

This includes eight straight home losses and eight straight losses in general.

But, eight straight home losses? Are you kidding me? That is shameful. They play 41 games a year here at it is becoming an advantage to the opponents.

But, this is not even a new phenomenon. Right now, it is just at its peak frustration. Last year, the Nets only 15 games at home. The year before that one, they won a pathetic 13.

Let’s go back one more year beyond that where they won just 14.

Yeah, I get it, the Nets are just a bad team in general, but c’mon in three full seasons they couldn’t even win half their home games? Not even close to half. just one time?

That is nothing short of a joke. The Nets had these big ambitions to trade away all the assets to win a title and hang a rafter in their new Barclays Center but have instead become a laughing-stock.

That loss against the Thunder, I will even defend was an outlier the trend. An anomaly. That is how badly they blew that game.

Paul George, a player for the Thunder, broke the record for most points scored in a game at Barclays Center, at least that is what the Nets broadcast said, and quite frankly, I am too scared to even look up if that is true myself.

So even the outlier of this trend still has a heart-shattering fact to it.

It has become ridiculous how bad the Nets are. They might even be worse at home.

I know the season is early and the Nets can “turn things around” but even winning the next six straight home games wouldn’t put them at .500 for the season in Brooklyn.

The Nets are not even good enough to win three games in general.

Yeah, maybe a couple wins in a row can fix things and lighten the mood, but this is ridiculous right now.

Between the Nets and the Islanders, the playoffs are few and far between the last few seasons in this building.

But even with the Nets being the only team whose full-time home is this building, is rough enough in itself.

I have no idea what kind of curse of burden has been placed on this team. Yeah, a few awful trades early in the history could have done that.

But, I am partially convinced that the building itself is cursed, or something bad has happened on Atlantic Ave in a prior life or something. The tenants of the building are suffering in every way.

So, get ready Brooklyn/New York because the day the Nets have a season where they win more home games than they lose, the City might seize to exist.

But, that alone would be worth finally hanging a new banner in Barclays Center for.

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The Barclays Center. The saddest place in all of the sports world.

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