‘A Two-Pack of Ass’ - Inside One Year of New Ownership in the Swamplands [SWAMPSTORY 1]
Posted: February 17th, 2024, 11:35 am
[SUBSCRIBERS ONLY] A malfunctioning vending machine stocked with sushi from Takanassee Lake. A director of player personnel who believed dunks were worth five points. A drug-addled unauthorized mascot that turned out to be Sen. Jon Stevens Corzine blowing off steam. Twelve months (it’s been like six weeks?) into a new regime, voices around the SLN are wondering just what’s going on with these New Jersey Nets.
“I don't feel that it is necessary to know exactly what I am. The main interest in life and work is to become someone else that you were not in the beginning.” ― Michel Foucault
“I guess they heard that the Spurs locker room hammers away at a rock, or something, so lately Coach has encouraged us to fire less-than-lethal ammo at the granite counter tops on suite level.” ― Michael Dunkin Penberthy
I. Fans in a frenzy
For the past four SLN seasons, Anthony “Raw Dawg” Volpacchio has faithfully congregated at Uncle Mommy’s, the no. 1 sports bar and a top-3 dental practice in Manalapan Township. From about 6 a.m. through sunset, Volpacchio is a working man, buying up and reserving thousands of domains like “HummerBoobs.com” to later sell to aspiring enterprises. But after punching the clock, which he does to build hand strength for optimal masturbation technique, the 58-year-old father of none is a full-blown cheerleader, yelping in ecstasy and agony while watching his New Jersey Nets, 82 games a season.
The franchise is admittedly not one of the SLN’s premier clubs. Most fans in the tri-state area gravitate to the New York Knicks, recent world champions and occupants of “the world’s most famous arena.” The Prudential Center smells like popcorn, but in the dog pee way and not in a fun or endearing way. And the team’s four playoff appearances in four years have led to an uninspiring 7-16 postseason record. But for people like “Raw Dawg” Volpacchio and the legion of devoted fans at Uncle Mommy’s, the Nets have been a tremendous source of local pride. Right now, their loyalty is being tested to biblical proportions.
“They lose games they should win,” the superfan says through gritted teeth. “They turn the ball over like crazy. And this fuckin’ bar stopped serving dino nuggets. It’s just not fun anymore.” Donning two beards and a Tanoka Beard jersey, one can feel the contempt running through his disgusting lil body.
Attendance at “The Prude” has been dwindling since new ownership took over late in the 1999-2000 season. Steven Louis Marks-Prokhorov, the eccentric quillionaire who made his fortune selling a shiny Gengar card to help Enron liquidate, bought the team at the behest of close friend and long-time laser tag partner Jeremy Woo. The subsequent year of changes has been frustrating for fans, who claim they’ve been bearing the brunt of financial difficulties incurred by the purchase. Parking spots are being auctioned to the highest bidders; media guides now come with suggested donation tiers; “Tony Soprano Night” was canceled after the intellectual property owner, HBO and Cablevision’s James Dolan, atomically wedgied Steven in a Long Island City steakhouse. All this would perhaps be overlooked by a fanbase starved for a conference finals appearance, but the team’s sub-.500 play hasn’t done itself any favors. Listening to the new Mystikal CD and aloofly pulling from a bath salt vape in his executive suite, Steven downplays any frustrations potentially bubbling by the swamp.
“I always forget the jacket buttoning trick. Is it NEVER SOMETIMES ALWAYS? I button all of them to be safe, but what’s the use if you’re gonna get friggin’ wedgied?,” he says, full tuxedo, attempting to light a monocle with his cigar cutter. “Do you think I should add more buttons?” In an hour-long interview, Steven mixed metaphors, interrupted several times to seek clarification on the rules of Boggle, and belied a grave misunderstanding of both basketball and money itself.
“They don’t know what they’re doing,” exclaims Chris Christie, the owner of Uncle Mommy’s and an aspiring slam poet. “That shit with the hard cap was embarrassing. A trade got voided by Stern David, that strict and serious guy in the Secaucus league office. And why are the Bullets not the Wizards yet? Like, da fuck is going on?”
Speaking anonymously, several Nets employees confirmed that the team doesn’t have enough money to stitch last names to the back of jerseys. The bobbleheads made on “Larry Johnson Night” were sponsored by the Gambino Crime Family. The expectation is that things have to get worse to get better; after all, most mediocre teams like the Nets are forced to go all-in on improvements or reconstruct the roster around future talents, and the front office has chosen the ladder, because the hazelnut-flavored creamers are on the top shelf and it just doesn’t taste enough like real coffee on its own. But a year from now, when the team’s rebuild is in full-effect, the commuting businessmen and pre-teen coal miners at Uncle Mommy’s may be singing a different tune.
“I’m making my nephew join the Marines if they don’t have a clear strategy in ‘01,” Raw Dawg says with two straws in his nostrils like a walrus.
II. It’s darkest before Mourning
Aside from beating Snood on the “evil” difficulty and running into Carson Daly at Port Authority, it’s been a miserable year for Nets head coach Pizzaroll Head-Coach. He knew that management would be eager to find trade partners for Alonzo Mourning and Wesley Person, two All-NBA level veterans ahead of the franchise’s timetable. And he knew his days were numbered after ownership demanded rookie point guard Michael Dunkin Penberthy replace mainstay Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf in the starting lineup. But team sources confirm that Head-Coach has truly found himself in no-man's land, which is not that surprising considering the visible signage announcing this place as THE GODDAMN WOMEN’S BATHROOM DUDE WHAT THE FUCK???
“It’s been a two-pack of ass,” recently-fired team trainer and Trenton resident Joe Budden says. “Roy Rogers is a really cool dude, but every once in a while, he’ll say things like, ‘do you know that it’s literally illegal for a gift card to expire? What the fuck is Mars 2112 talking about? Again, there are FEDERAL CONSUMER PROTECTIONS on these type of things, I was gonna have my daughter’s birthday there, but I’m not paying $10 for a space Pepsi, I know it’s just regular Pepsi.’”
Much of the confusion can be attributed to Nets scouts all collectively dating Vinny Testaverde, and at least one swampstaffer “swearing on his life” that a dunk is worth five points in some countries. There are some positive developments, though. Dunkin Penberthy has averaged 23 points and five assists per game since assuming the starting point guard role. He led the team with 31 in their most recent win over the Phoenix Suns. Five different players are shooting better than 39 percent from behind the arc. The trades of Mourning and Person netted five first-round picks and stat-stuffer Isaiah Rider. And the team picked up an additional pick trading down in the draft and still getting their man in Courtney Alexander, who is averaging more than 30 points per game in the NDL. A recent team outing to Atlantic City ended with the Nets’ young core laughing and hot-tubbing in a large vat of French onion soup.
SLN sources around the league voiced concerns of collusion when the Nets traded Mourning to Woo’s Toronto Raptors earlier last week. Though the transaction was ultimately voided and Mourning was later routed to the Golden State Warriors, Steven stands on his evaluation and his decision.
“Collusion, that’s such a funny word. It’s probably the “LOOOOOSH” sound,” he says.
The last dominos to drop are Larry Johnson, a veteran forward with a scorer’s touch on an expiring $15 million contract, and Rogers, the versatile and cost-controlled defensive big man. Sources close to the team say both players will be moved for draft capital or RP by the trade deadline. From there, the tank begins in full: Steven acquired a military-grade tank due to new legislation that allows rich people to take national defense resources if they’re using them as prop comedy, and he’s parking it closer and closer to Mitchell Butler’s Corvette until one day he’ll be fully boxed in and the look on his face will be totally priceless. Shortly after that, the losing basketball will commence too.
“With Zo and Wessy P gone, someone’s gonna have to step up and lead this group,” Dunkin Penberthy said from the locker room following his 31-point performance. “For me, that leader is Rudy Boesch. Seriously, are you guys watching this Survivor: Borneo thing? So rad.”
III. New Millennium, new strategies
With trial and tribulation eventually comes learned experience, and sometimes a side of fries if you throw a temper tantrum long enough. Steven has begun to learn the rules, standards and personalities dotting the SLN. He’s been eating everything in the executive dining room “with Grundlesauce,” which the chef doesn’t have the heart to tell him is just the green Heinz ketchup promoting this fall’s forthcoming Dreamworks feature. He’s been wandering the halls at night calling for someone named “Old Man Sim,” and he knows way more about Robert “Tractor” Traylor than he ever thought possible. After he emerged as the only owner to hit the RP parlay proposed in pickem #2, he was glowingly referred to as “some guy in this league” by at least one rival owner.
“New Kids on the Block got a bunch of hits, Chinese food makes me sick,” Steven says, ushering press out of the building. When asked why previous audits of the franchise revealed nothing but three years of crudely-drawn big-tittied Dragonball Z characters and misspelled lyrics from Mase’s “Harlem World,” Steven deflected and begged Larry Johnson to bail him out.
“We’re taking it one day at a time, and we’re playing for each other,” the vet says. “New Jersey is a great state, and a pretty good country. We’ll make sure the Swamp gets what they deserve.”
Back at Uncle Mommy’s, the Nets faithful is dwindling, but a core crew continues to show up on a nightly basis. If Bruce Springsteen sings for a New Jersey lost to deindustrialization and unromanticized for the 20th century, then perhaps Michael Dunkin Penberthy sings for a New Jersey yet to come in the 21st. They say the SLN is like jazz music, in that it’s about the notes you don’t play but also because it confuses non-nerds and was illegal during the Woodrow Wilson administration. Well, well, well, do you have any idea where Woodrow Wilson went to college? PRINCETON. And do you know what Woodrow Wilson did before he was President? OPIUM WITH STEAMBOAT WILLIE, BUT ALSO HE WAS THE GOVERNOR OF NEW JERSEY.
“Even though I was let go, I’ll always still root for the Nets,” Budden says. It’s time for this team to finally pu-pu–p-p-p-pu-pu-p-pump it up! Sorry, my stutter gets bad when I’m talking to white people, but hey, that was kinda rhythmic. Hold on, I have an idea.”
“I don't feel that it is necessary to know exactly what I am. The main interest in life and work is to become someone else that you were not in the beginning.” ― Michel Foucault
“I guess they heard that the Spurs locker room hammers away at a rock, or something, so lately Coach has encouraged us to fire less-than-lethal ammo at the granite counter tops on suite level.” ― Michael Dunkin Penberthy
I. Fans in a frenzy
For the past four SLN seasons, Anthony “Raw Dawg” Volpacchio has faithfully congregated at Uncle Mommy’s, the no. 1 sports bar and a top-3 dental practice in Manalapan Township. From about 6 a.m. through sunset, Volpacchio is a working man, buying up and reserving thousands of domains like “HummerBoobs.com” to later sell to aspiring enterprises. But after punching the clock, which he does to build hand strength for optimal masturbation technique, the 58-year-old father of none is a full-blown cheerleader, yelping in ecstasy and agony while watching his New Jersey Nets, 82 games a season.
The franchise is admittedly not one of the SLN’s premier clubs. Most fans in the tri-state area gravitate to the New York Knicks, recent world champions and occupants of “the world’s most famous arena.” The Prudential Center smells like popcorn, but in the dog pee way and not in a fun or endearing way. And the team’s four playoff appearances in four years have led to an uninspiring 7-16 postseason record. But for people like “Raw Dawg” Volpacchio and the legion of devoted fans at Uncle Mommy’s, the Nets have been a tremendous source of local pride. Right now, their loyalty is being tested to biblical proportions.
“They lose games they should win,” the superfan says through gritted teeth. “They turn the ball over like crazy. And this fuckin’ bar stopped serving dino nuggets. It’s just not fun anymore.” Donning two beards and a Tanoka Beard jersey, one can feel the contempt running through his disgusting lil body.
Attendance at “The Prude” has been dwindling since new ownership took over late in the 1999-2000 season. Steven Louis Marks-Prokhorov, the eccentric quillionaire who made his fortune selling a shiny Gengar card to help Enron liquidate, bought the team at the behest of close friend and long-time laser tag partner Jeremy Woo. The subsequent year of changes has been frustrating for fans, who claim they’ve been bearing the brunt of financial difficulties incurred by the purchase. Parking spots are being auctioned to the highest bidders; media guides now come with suggested donation tiers; “Tony Soprano Night” was canceled after the intellectual property owner, HBO and Cablevision’s James Dolan, atomically wedgied Steven in a Long Island City steakhouse. All this would perhaps be overlooked by a fanbase starved for a conference finals appearance, but the team’s sub-.500 play hasn’t done itself any favors. Listening to the new Mystikal CD and aloofly pulling from a bath salt vape in his executive suite, Steven downplays any frustrations potentially bubbling by the swamp.
“I always forget the jacket buttoning trick. Is it NEVER SOMETIMES ALWAYS? I button all of them to be safe, but what’s the use if you’re gonna get friggin’ wedgied?,” he says, full tuxedo, attempting to light a monocle with his cigar cutter. “Do you think I should add more buttons?” In an hour-long interview, Steven mixed metaphors, interrupted several times to seek clarification on the rules of Boggle, and belied a grave misunderstanding of both basketball and money itself.
“They don’t know what they’re doing,” exclaims Chris Christie, the owner of Uncle Mommy’s and an aspiring slam poet. “That shit with the hard cap was embarrassing. A trade got voided by Stern David, that strict and serious guy in the Secaucus league office. And why are the Bullets not the Wizards yet? Like, da fuck is going on?”
Speaking anonymously, several Nets employees confirmed that the team doesn’t have enough money to stitch last names to the back of jerseys. The bobbleheads made on “Larry Johnson Night” were sponsored by the Gambino Crime Family. The expectation is that things have to get worse to get better; after all, most mediocre teams like the Nets are forced to go all-in on improvements or reconstruct the roster around future talents, and the front office has chosen the ladder, because the hazelnut-flavored creamers are on the top shelf and it just doesn’t taste enough like real coffee on its own. But a year from now, when the team’s rebuild is in full-effect, the commuting businessmen and pre-teen coal miners at Uncle Mommy’s may be singing a different tune.
“I’m making my nephew join the Marines if they don’t have a clear strategy in ‘01,” Raw Dawg says with two straws in his nostrils like a walrus.
II. It’s darkest before Mourning
Aside from beating Snood on the “evil” difficulty and running into Carson Daly at Port Authority, it’s been a miserable year for Nets head coach Pizzaroll Head-Coach. He knew that management would be eager to find trade partners for Alonzo Mourning and Wesley Person, two All-NBA level veterans ahead of the franchise’s timetable. And he knew his days were numbered after ownership demanded rookie point guard Michael Dunkin Penberthy replace mainstay Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf in the starting lineup. But team sources confirm that Head-Coach has truly found himself in no-man's land, which is not that surprising considering the visible signage announcing this place as THE GODDAMN WOMEN’S BATHROOM DUDE WHAT THE FUCK???
“It’s been a two-pack of ass,” recently-fired team trainer and Trenton resident Joe Budden says. “Roy Rogers is a really cool dude, but every once in a while, he’ll say things like, ‘do you know that it’s literally illegal for a gift card to expire? What the fuck is Mars 2112 talking about? Again, there are FEDERAL CONSUMER PROTECTIONS on these type of things, I was gonna have my daughter’s birthday there, but I’m not paying $10 for a space Pepsi, I know it’s just regular Pepsi.’”
Much of the confusion can be attributed to Nets scouts all collectively dating Vinny Testaverde, and at least one swampstaffer “swearing on his life” that a dunk is worth five points in some countries. There are some positive developments, though. Dunkin Penberthy has averaged 23 points and five assists per game since assuming the starting point guard role. He led the team with 31 in their most recent win over the Phoenix Suns. Five different players are shooting better than 39 percent from behind the arc. The trades of Mourning and Person netted five first-round picks and stat-stuffer Isaiah Rider. And the team picked up an additional pick trading down in the draft and still getting their man in Courtney Alexander, who is averaging more than 30 points per game in the NDL. A recent team outing to Atlantic City ended with the Nets’ young core laughing and hot-tubbing in a large vat of French onion soup.
SLN sources around the league voiced concerns of collusion when the Nets traded Mourning to Woo’s Toronto Raptors earlier last week. Though the transaction was ultimately voided and Mourning was later routed to the Golden State Warriors, Steven stands on his evaluation and his decision.
“Collusion, that’s such a funny word. It’s probably the “LOOOOOSH” sound,” he says.
The last dominos to drop are Larry Johnson, a veteran forward with a scorer’s touch on an expiring $15 million contract, and Rogers, the versatile and cost-controlled defensive big man. Sources close to the team say both players will be moved for draft capital or RP by the trade deadline. From there, the tank begins in full: Steven acquired a military-grade tank due to new legislation that allows rich people to take national defense resources if they’re using them as prop comedy, and he’s parking it closer and closer to Mitchell Butler’s Corvette until one day he’ll be fully boxed in and the look on his face will be totally priceless. Shortly after that, the losing basketball will commence too.
“With Zo and Wessy P gone, someone’s gonna have to step up and lead this group,” Dunkin Penberthy said from the locker room following his 31-point performance. “For me, that leader is Rudy Boesch. Seriously, are you guys watching this Survivor: Borneo thing? So rad.”
III. New Millennium, new strategies
With trial and tribulation eventually comes learned experience, and sometimes a side of fries if you throw a temper tantrum long enough. Steven has begun to learn the rules, standards and personalities dotting the SLN. He’s been eating everything in the executive dining room “with Grundlesauce,” which the chef doesn’t have the heart to tell him is just the green Heinz ketchup promoting this fall’s forthcoming Dreamworks feature. He’s been wandering the halls at night calling for someone named “Old Man Sim,” and he knows way more about Robert “Tractor” Traylor than he ever thought possible. After he emerged as the only owner to hit the RP parlay proposed in pickem #2, he was glowingly referred to as “some guy in this league” by at least one rival owner.
“New Kids on the Block got a bunch of hits, Chinese food makes me sick,” Steven says, ushering press out of the building. When asked why previous audits of the franchise revealed nothing but three years of crudely-drawn big-tittied Dragonball Z characters and misspelled lyrics from Mase’s “Harlem World,” Steven deflected and begged Larry Johnson to bail him out.
“We’re taking it one day at a time, and we’re playing for each other,” the vet says. “New Jersey is a great state, and a pretty good country. We’ll make sure the Swamp gets what they deserve.”
Back at Uncle Mommy’s, the Nets faithful is dwindling, but a core crew continues to show up on a nightly basis. If Bruce Springsteen sings for a New Jersey lost to deindustrialization and unromanticized for the 20th century, then perhaps Michael Dunkin Penberthy sings for a New Jersey yet to come in the 21st. They say the SLN is like jazz music, in that it’s about the notes you don’t play but also because it confuses non-nerds and was illegal during the Woodrow Wilson administration. Well, well, well, do you have any idea where Woodrow Wilson went to college? PRINCETON. And do you know what Woodrow Wilson did before he was President? OPIUM WITH STEAMBOAT WILLIE, BUT ALSO HE WAS THE GOVERNOR OF NEW JERSEY.
“Even though I was let go, I’ll always still root for the Nets,” Budden says. It’s time for this team to finally pu-pu–p-p-p-pu-pu-p-pump it up! Sorry, my stutter gets bad when I’m talking to white people, but hey, that was kinda rhythmic. Hold on, I have an idea.”