Times reports on school visit by Nets coach and two dancers: "Nets Already In Brooklyn"

The New York Times Metro section doesn't see fit to report on, say, the curious appointment of Arana Hankin as Atlantic Yards Project Manager, but the newspaper so often has room to promote gratuitous Nets fluff.

Remember that long Metro section article last January about promoting the Nets in Brooklyn or that Sports section puff piece last November about Devin Harris?

Well, yesterday the Sports section offered a standalone photo showing new Nets coach Avery Johnson at a middle school in Brooklyn, accompanied by two Nets dancers in very short skirts (great role model, right?). No players apparently showed up


The overstated caption, headlined Nets Already In Brooklyn:

Accompanied by the Nets Dancers, Avery Johnson, the team's new coach, visited the William Alexander Middle School in Brooklyn. With the Barclays Center under construction nearby, Johnson expressed optimism about the team's future. More on the Off the Dribble blog at nytimes.com.

He expressed optimism? Shocker.

When a new coach has an existential crisis in front of 13-year-olds, please let me know.

For the record

At least Jonathan Abrams' Off the Dribble blog report acknowledged a gray area:

With all the focus on the future, it’s easy to overlook a bleak present and claim amnesia for a troubling past. The honeymoon period for Johnson, Mikhail Prokhorov, the team’s new owner, and Billy King, the recently hired general manager, will end and the present will sink in, especially if the Nets’ off-season turnover does not lessen last season’s turmoil.

As for the William Alexander Middle School, it is relatively close, about 17 blocks, to the arena site.