Maybe it’s hard to blame Lionel Hollins, if you think about it. After all, he saw more of the Nets than anybody, saw them up close, saw so much bad basketball and so much underachievement. After a while, maybe you develop an immunity to all of it. Maybe you just grow soft from all the misery.
But this is something Hollins — who has been a head coach in the NBA for eight years, who played in the league for 10, who won one NBA championship as a player and made it to the Finals two other times — actually said on Friday night, after his basketball team was humiliated 111-87 by the Hawks, putting a merciful end to a rancid season in Brooklyn.