FanHouse Nets

H1N1 has hit the NBA. The Nets announced Saturday afternoon that starting two-guard Chris Douglas-Roberts has come down with the dangerous virus, putting the player out of action and the rest of the team at risk.

Though the Nets have stunk, Douglas-Roberts has had a solid start to the season, a follow-up on a disappointing rookie campaign in which the University of Memphis product got little opportunity for New Jersey. CD-R missed Friday's game at Philadelphia with flu-like symptoms ... a rather prophetic diagnosis.

The Nets are limited to eight or nine players due to injury (Courtney Lee tweaked his groin Friday), so the team can't exactly afford to lose any others to illness. There have been no reports of the virus spreading in Nets locker room, and Nets PR says every precaution has been taken.

Later in the evening, Douglas-Roberts tweeted that he was in good spirits as the Nets hosted the Celtics: Let's go Netttsss!!! Cheering from the bed. I'm the flyest person who will ever have Swine Flu.

PHILADELPHIA -- They just made a stop in Philadelphia, so why not be the first to throw it out. Can the New Jersey Nets make a run at the 1972-73 76ers' all-time futility mark of 9-73?

The Nets are the NBA's only winless team at 0-6 after Friday night's 97-94 loss to the 76ers and every day another player seems to get hurt. Call them the New Jersey Gnats the way they're dropping like flies.

OK, so it's way too early to think these Nets are going to make history for basketball badness. And, besides, Nets guard Rafer Alston gets upset when somebody calls his team the NBA's worse.

"That does (hurt) because you know you have a lot of pride,'' Alston said. "It hurts to be considered the worst ... when you know you have a lot of basketball and life in your game and there's a lot of pride in each man.''

In his NBA.com video recap of last Friday's Magic-Nets game, NBA TV analyst Rick Kamla made the unfortunate mistake of referring to New Jersey forward Yi Jianlian as a "Chinaman." After FanHouse contacted Turner Sports about the remark, the video was pulled from NBA.com. It ran on NBA TV Friday and has been available on NBA.com since Friday night.

Turner Sports spokesman Jeff Pomeroy relayed to FanHouse an apology to anyone offended by the remark from Kamla and the network, which manages NBA TV and NBA.com. Pomeroy said Kamla was not aware of the connotations of the word, and meant nothing malicious or offensive by it.

Vince Carter was about to deliver one of those "don't-you-wish-I-was-still-here" games Friday night in New Jersey, when he fell to the floor clutching his left ankle midway in the second quarter.

Carter, traded by the Nets to the Orlando Magic this summer, had 16 points in his first 15 minutes before he left with a sprained ankle. X-rays were negative and he told reporters that "hopefully,'' he could play Sunday in Toronto.

His mother, who was there, described it to the Orlando Sentinel as a "mild sprain.'' It happened on a drive to the basket when he stepped awkwardly on the foot of New Jersey guard Devin Harris.

The NBA isn't just made at Staples on Sunday afternoons under the lights, or in a Friday night showdown at the Garden. It's every night, players stepping up and making plays.

It's guys that will eventually be answers to trivia questions making huge shots that endear them and their teams to the hearts of young fans who first make a connection with this crazy, random, beautiful game.

The heroes aren't just the guys on posters and All-Star ballots, sometimes they are journeymen who show up every day, don't shoot a great percentage and get the job done.

Wednesday was Damien Wilkins' day.

The uber-rich are people, too, right? Well, they may put their pants on one leg at a time, but they certainly don't eat meals like we do.

Consider this: Mikhail Prokhorov, the Russian billionaire expected to purchase a majority stake in the New Jersey Nets, recently celebrated a positive meeting with the NBA's governors by having lunch with a half dozen friends. What's the big deal, right?

Well, according to the New York Post, his tab for lunch at Nello's, a tony restaurant in New York's Upper East Side, was nearly $19,000. How exactly does one eat the cost equivalent of a mid-size sedan? Keep reading to find out.

Thinking back on my childhood, the one thing I really, really, really wanted on my birthday was for someone to remember it. But after that, easily the No. 2 option was having a famous athlete swing by my party and act like he was thrilled to be dealing with tons of children on a random Wednesday in the middle of the season.

Fortunately, for some child who has insanely rich parents, that dream will possibly come true one day, in the form of a barely recognizable by most kids famous member of the New Jersey Nets. That's right -- the Nets are so desperate for ticket sales that they're making player appearances value adds to those low priced ($25,000) 10-game ticket packages.

Tip-Off Timer counts down the days until the first game of the 2009-10 season. On Tuesday, there are 14 days remaining.

For everything the NBA has done to level the playing field -- the draft lottery, the salary cap, the dollar-for-dollar luxury tax -- only a select handful of teams have a legitimate chance to win the championship in any given year.

I know optimism is supposed to reign supreme in October, but here's a harsh dose of reality: in the past 26 years, only seven different organizations have hoisted the Larry O'Brien, and six of those teams have won more than once. In fact, in a league where fluke success is rare and dynasties are the norm, there are 14 teams that have yet to win a title.

Will any of these perennial losers buck their unfortunate losing streaks in the near future? While the Lakers, Spurs and Celtics (winners of nine of the last 11 titles) would disagree, it's a very real possibility.

FanHouse previews a player to watch from each NBA team in advance of the 2009-10 season.

This is Yi Jianlian. He plays basketball for the New Jersey Nets. He was once a highly desired commodity in the NBA -- so desired that Yi's threat to abstain from joining the NBA when an undesirable team draft resulted in several Important Men, including a United States Senator, traveling to China to negotiate Yi's departure to Milwaukee.

After one year and a Bucks regime change, Yi was traded for a well-respected player, Richard Jefferson. Along with giving up the quite-good Jefferson, the Nets also agreed to take on the onerous contract of Bobby Simmons. (There was also some future cap relief for New Jersey, but suffice it to say Yi was a big deal in this trade.)

Given all the attention, you'd think Yi Jianlian is a great basketball player by NBA standards. But he is not. Yi is a pretty substandard NBA player. The Nets desperately need that to change.