The 2018 Brooklyn Nets‘ first-round draft pick will undoubtedly go down in history as the most infamous draft selection of all-time. From the way the Celtics acquired that pick from Brooklyn in the first place, to how it was shipped off to Cleveland in the Kyrie Irving trade, to how the Cavaliers are already potentially shopping it in order to bolster their NBA Championship hopes, that 2018 draft pick has been an NBA talking point for what feels like forever. There will never be another pick with that much baggage behind it.
It’s such a silly NBA thing, too. You’ve got to be an NBA diehard to appreciate its absurdity, but when you can say something as vague as ‘the Brooklyn pick’ and everyone knows exactly what you’re talking about, and the lineage behind it, you know you’ve hit on something special. We’re going to miss The Brooklyn Pick when it’s gone.
For a long time, The Brooklyn Pick represented a ticket the NBA’s next big star. It was a placeholder for Marvin Bagley, or Michael Porter, or Luke Doncic, because the Brooklyn Nets had so little talent, coupled with no cap space and no draft picks. They were an NBA wasteland.
Unfortunately for the Cavaliers, the current owners of said Brooklyn Pick, the Nets, aren’t the disaster everyone thought they’d be. Sean Marks, current GM for the Nets, deserves endless credit for that. What once looked like an automatic superstar draft selection could easily land outside of the top 5, but that isn’t going to stop everyone from making their Brooklyn pick jokes.
The Cavaliers were in Brooklyn to play the Nets on Wednesday night. This marked the first regular season match-up between the two teams since the Cavaliers landed The Brooklyn Pick this summer, and one clever Cavs fan wanted to get his trolling in while he still had a chance. We proudly present to you one of the worst custom jerseys of all-time.
From a friend also at Barclays tonight. Amazing. pic.twitter.com/VgJY8p3wtC
— Jacob L. Rosen (@JacobLRosen) October 25, 2017
Oh boy. The last Cavaliers player to rock 00 was Chris ‘Birdman’ Anderson for 12 games back in 2016-17. So what we’re looking at here is likely a Chris Anderson jersey customized to say ‘BKLYN PICK’ because sure, why not? This labeling job doesn’t look remotely professional, and it’s one of those fake NBA jerseys with the longer-cut sleeves. It’s gross, really, in a way that fan-customized NBA jerseys are supposed to be. Well played, sir.
