The Brooklyn Nets are making a lot of noise this NBA season, making some enemies in the past couple of months for their practices in the trade and buyout markets. Steve Nash and his coaching staff have welcomed a series of big players this season, which fans consider are unfair for the competition as they’re just stacking stars to win the championship easily.
This has earned them a lot of hate and the Nets did in a couple of months what no other team could do in prior seasons. Right now, they are the most hated team in America, according to geodata.
BetOnline used “trends software with direct access to geotagged Twitter data” and the results show that the Lakers are still hated by plenty of people across the country but the Nets have dethroned them this year.
Nets – 25 states
Lakers – 21 states
76ers – 2 states
Celtics – 2 states
As we all know, the James Harden trade in January, as well as the signings of Blake Griffin and LaMarcus Aldridge helped people to develop this animosity towards the Nets and now there’s nothing they can do to stop this. One spokesperson of BetOnline (via Nets Daily) explained that all these moves didn’t sit well with the public and here we are, with the Nets getting a lot of hate around the league.
The combination of Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, and James Harden (all polarizing players) seems to have finally taken over the country’s dislike for The Los Angeles Lakers, in addition to trumping any other rivalries in the league. The only difference is the Lakers are also one of the league’s most loved teams… with most of this sentiment (both ways) arguably coming just from the love or “hate” of Lebron James.
The 76ers and Celtics got some attention in the northeast, due to Eastern Conference rivalries and the success of the Sixers, but it’s interesting to see the New England area change over from being perennial Lakers haters to Nets haters (some are likely still salty about Kyrie Irving leaving the team).
All in all, it’s safe to say not a whole lot of people want to see these teams win… especially with small market teams, who are very hard to dislike, such as the Utah Jazz doing so well.
The Nets and Lakers are still seen as favorites to win their respective conferences and play in the Finals. If that happens, it would be interesting to see if the ratings will go up or down, seeing all the hate these teams have earned in recent times.
Well, Brooklyn is the new NBA villain and they have no problem with that. They would prefer to be hated than to be a team no one cares about and as long as they can win regardless of how bad people think of them, they will be just happy.
