No Net suffered the brunt of Hurricane Sandy like Tyshawn Taylor did.
The rookie guard found himself stranded inside his Hoboken apartment complex for three days, as waters from the Hudson River washed into the city and covered his street.
“[The area] normally floods on a regular rainy day,” Taylor said after Thursday’s practice. “I guess the people were kind of prepared for it but, at the same time, people really didn’t know what to expect.”
Taylor, who grew up in Hoboken and starred for legendary coach Bob Hurley at St. Anthony High School in Jersey City, said he lived on the eighth floor, so his belongings were fine, but he knew he had to get out of his apartment when the National Guard came and knocked on his door Wednesday.
“They said it’s probably going to storm again, and if it does, the water’s going to be double what it is now, and you guys won’t have power for 10-13 days,” Taylor said. “I was like, ‘I’ve got to get out of here.’ ”
So Taylor had his cousin come and pick him up in his Jeep Wrangler. They drove through water Taylor said was up to the doors of the vehicle. After missing practice Wednesday, he was back on the court Thursday.
Taylor, who moved into a Brooklyn hotel Wednesday, said the biggest thing he was worried about wasn’t the storm, or even the flooding, but potentially missing last night’s scheduled season opener against the Knicks before it was eventually postponed.
“I got some sleep, because we had no power or TV, so I wasn’t stressing about anything besides not being able to practice on Wednesday,” Taylor said. “And if I didn’t practice, there was no way he was going to let me play in the game, so I was like, ‘I have to get out of here!’ ”
* As of now, the Nets are hoping they will be able to get back into their practice facility in East Rutherford, N.J., by the time they return from their trip to Florida next weekend.
“In my mind, I’m saying two weeks,” coach Avery Johnson said. “If they come and surprise me and tell me it’s earlier than that, but in my mind I’m thinking it’s two weeks.“We have some work to do there, we have some issues with the building, and they’re working to get it all resolved.”
General manager Billy King said power had been restored to the building, and workers were coming in to assess the damage to the court.
* Ticket prices to tomorrow’s Nets-Raptors game are plummeting on the secondary markets — even after it became the team’s season opener following the postponement of last night’s originally scheduled Nets-Knicks season opener.
Wednesday night, after the announcement was made the Nets-Knicks game would be postponed, the cheapest available ticket was for $91 apiece, and there were less than 25 bundles of tickets for less than $100 per ticket.
By early last night, however, prices for the cheapest seats in the arena had plummeted to $49 apiece, and there were more than 100 bundles available for less than $100 per ticket.