R.I.P. Twin
An incoherent tribute to a real one.
On May 12th, news broke of Jason Collins’ death from a glioblastoma. He was 47 years old and it felt like the basketball community still had much to learn from him. Go read the Netsdaily crew and Samer Khalef, read Collins’ interview with Ramona Shelburne from December, and of course, his 2013 Sports Illustrated essay that began, “I'm a 34-year-old NBA center. I'm black. And I'm gay.”
My family moved to Hudson County, New Jersey in early 2022. A couple of exits on the Turnpike away from the Meadowlands, where the sad sack New Jersey Nets played. Well, not sad sack at that point. Serendipitously, in the previous season, GM Rod Thorn had brought Jason Kidd in for Stephon Marbury. And a Nets team built around Kidd, Kenyon Martin, Richard Jefferson, and a rookie starting center out of Stanford made it all the way to the NBA Finals, only to get stomped by the dynasty Lakers in four games. NBA fans are formed on flimsier bases, although perhaps not Nets fans. Still, this heart was committed for life and the following year, the Nets went all the way to the finals again, even pushing the dynasty Spurs to six games. To this day, I maintain that had Byron Scott managed Lucious Harris’ substitution patterns better in Game 6, the Nets would have emerged victorious.1
Like many teenagers, I had an unhealthy obsession with internet message boards; unlike many teenagers, mine revolved around the New Jersey Nets community. The universal tributes to Collins today notwithstanding, I have to be honest: he copped a fair amount of flak. Amidst the fast-break razzle dazzle of Kidd and KMart’s high-flying dunks, us philistines couldn’t see what Collins brought to the table. Still, even the more neanderthal amongst us could admit that there had to be something in the guy if the Nets felt comfortable starting him against Shaquille O’Neal, David Robinson, and Tim Duncan, maybe three of the twenty most dominant big men in NBA history. Did I mention that Collins did this in his first two years in the league?
Today, even casual NBA fans have access to the data that shows Collins’ on-court value. He would be an analytics darling today, the big man Shane Battier, or De’Anthony Melton.
Everything about that Nets team started with its defense. Of the sixteen teams in the 2004 playoffs, the Nets had the fourth worst half-court offense. What they did do is clean up in transition, using their defense to trigger fast break after fast break. The only team better in transition in those playoffs were the Boston Celtics…whom the Nets swept in the second round. And central to that defense was the second year center who barely registered a blip on the offensive end.
Try any lineup combination you want: the Nets weren’t just better on defense with Collins on the floor. They were one of the best teams in the league with Collins on the floor. In a league with Shaq, the Admiral, Alonzo Mourning, and more, Twin lapped the field.
Amidst all the justified accolades for Collins’ courage and legacy as an iconoclast, let’s not forget that he was a damn fine basketball player. It feels jejune to say that about someone who played 13 seasons in the toughest basketball league on the planet, but it’s worth saying all the same. Not least because that is why the now-renamed Brooklyn Nets signed him to multiple ten-day contracts after Collins came out in 2013. I am cynical realistic enough to recognize that capitalism and competitive sport have a low threshold for moral stances. Maybe, with Kidd coaching the Nets and a fanbase skewing more progressive than the average sports fan, Brooklyn wanted to take a stance. But Collins isn’t making the team if he didn’t deserve to be on the court as a basketball player.
Nevertheless, I have never been prouder to be a Nets fan than when this happened:
We watch sport for so many reasons, some conflicting, some shifting, the balance see-sawing as we balance emotion, rationality, and the primal desire to connect with fleeting moments of unadulterated ecstasy. It would be nice if we could watch with a clear conscience.
I hope the NBA, the sport, this entire accursed country gets to a point where we deserve people like Jason Collins.
We Nets fans have very little to cling to. Grant us a counterfactual, no matter how implausible.