Something there is that doesn't love order, as Robert Frost almost wrote. Why content oneself with peace and harmony, after all, when oneself can repeatedly punch oneself in the face?
The answer might be found in Brooklyn, where a tree doesn't grow that the Brooklyn Nets wouldn't immediately chop down. Chaos is their meat and drink these days, or seems to be. And, yes, punching oneself in the face feels precisely as good as you imagine.
Let's review, shall we?
* Last week, seven games into the season, the Nets fired coach Steve Nash. This raises the excellent question of why they didn't just fire him in the offseason if they were going to fire him. I mean, if you pull the trigger seven games into an 82-game season, it seems obvious he was already a dead man walking, right?
* No sooner had Nash happened, than Kyrie Irving did his deal. OK, so his latest deal.
The Nets star guard and resident wackadoodle put up on his social media account a link to a virulently antisemitic book and accompanying film, then tried to argue he didn't have nothin' against them Jewish folk. Pressured for a public apology, he immediately doubled down by taking responsibility for what he did but not acknowledging that it was stupid and, yeah, kinda Nazi-ish.
At which time the Nets did or said nothing to repudiate him for an uncomfortable period of time -- although, to be fair, neither did the league itself. Finally the team announced it was suspending him for at least five games, after which Irving issued an apology that we can all be sure was sincere and heartfelt.
(The most dismaying thing about all this, and more proof that half the country has gone insane, is there were folks on the interwhatsis leaping to Kyrie's defense. At least one folk actually criticized his fellow NBA players for not backing his play -- as if he were some sort of noble free speech warrior and not, you know, just another garden-variety bigot.)
* And now, back to this coaching business.
Shortly after the Nets fired the guy they'd already decided to fire weeks earlier, reports surfaced they were pursuing Ime Udoka to replace him.
You remember Udoka, right?
He's the guy who coached the Boston Celtics to the NBA Finals last spring, and whom the Celtics subsequently couldn't get rid of fast enough. It seems Udoka had been carrying on an improper relationship with a woman in the Celtics front office, and had been accused of sexually harassing others as well. So the Celtics suspended him for the season, with the tacit understanding they'd be more than happy if someone would take him off their hands.
"Me! Choose me!" the Nets said, presumably.
I guess two distractions aren't enough for them. Let's go for three!
Because if they hire Udoka, every question is going about what happened in Boston. Some of those questions will likely explore why they would suspend Sir Kooky for being antisemitic, and then turn around and throw money at an alleged sexual predator.
There's no easy answer to this, of course. Oh, wait: There's one.
Fist, meet face.
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