Vince Carter was greeted by 19,800 raving Toronto lunatics, all who wanted to remove his organs and stomp on his skull.
Eduardo Najera got emotional. And he got an ovation. But he still wanted to stomp somebody to prove his point.
Jarvis Hayes was nervous since the day the schedule came out.
It’s not always easy going home.
This season’s cast of Nets, though young with three rookies, also has nine players who began their NBA careers elsewhere. So at one point, they have either gone back to where it started – like Yi Jianlian did in Milwaukee last night, like Nenad Krstic with the Thunder will do Monday in the Meadowlands, or like Richard Jefferson with the Bucks last night. They see the former team come to them for the first meeting. Doesn’t matter. The emotions are the same.
“It’s real emotional, not crying emotional. But a lot of nerves,” Hayes said of his first time as a Piston playing in Washington, where he spent his first four seasons. “I was really nervous the first time I went to D.C., but once I got out there and ran up and down, it went away. But it’s tough.”
Hayes said the build-up is the toughest.
“I was nervous the first time in the summer when the schedules came out. It was, ‘Look it up, circle the date.’ “
After circling, you want to make someone sorry. That was how Najera approached returning to Dallas as a Golden State Warrior.
“There are a lot of emotions. You’re excited to go back and show you’re going to be missed. You have that extra juice to play hard and do whatever it takes to win,” said Najera, who suspects he will feel the same this season when the Nets play at Denver, where he spent 3 ½ seasons. “You know so many people who became friends, but it’s something that drives you to play harder. As a competitor, you want to show it was a mistake for them to not sign you or not bring you back.”
Sometimes, the good memories of a place make it difficult. Carter still gets booed in Toronto but speaks glowingly of the place. Keyon Dooling calls games in Miami “bittersweet” and predicts his first Nets game in Orlando will be the same. He liked his time in both cities after starting in Los Angeles as a Clipper.
“It’s a day you circle on your calendar, especially when the team you leave doesn’t want you. You kind of want to stick it to them and most of all win,” Dooling said. “And it depends where you go and how did you like playing in the city. Every time I go back to Miami, or when I first go back to Orlando, it will be bittersweet because I really enjoyed my time there.”
There is one point all the players say that, though hard at first, they accept.
“It’s the business of the NBA,” said Bobby Simmons, now with his fourth team. “It’s never personal.”