Jared Dudley is Getting What He Deserves Tonight
The sorry fact is, we all know a Jared Dudley. The guy at the Y who goes 1-8 in a pick-up game. His team loses 12-7 going by 1s and 2s but you’ll still hear about his one bucket. To him, it’s a flash of brilliance from the prime of his career before he got 15 pounds heavier.
The Sixers are currently dealing with the Jared Dudley of all Jared Dudley’s. He’s the trainer in Pokémon you face after the Elite 4 while half your Pokémon are dead. That guy was just an annoyance who didn’t have the roster you had! Except in this case, the trainer would be a fat fuck loser who was 6 years past their prime. That’s where we’re at in Game 5 with THIS Jared Dudley.
He’s obnoxious. He’s obscene. He’s a distraction. He wants attention. So why not give it to him?
Jared Dudley and the Nets are on the brink of the elimination and the gas tank is on E. They were inferior from the beginning and Dudley was smart enough to know it. I’ll at the very least give him that. The Miami Heat knew it last year too. They played physical, they played dirty, they stepped on masks, Kelly Olynyk existed. They couldn’t beat us, so they tried to punk us and beat us mentally.
On Saturday afternoon, in the most overrated city on the planet, that’s exactly the strategy Jared Dudley tried to employ: get in our heads and create chaos. He was basically a kamikaze, he sacrificed himself to cause as much destruction as possible…and somehow the NBA let it happen. So, do you think down 3-1 and a daunting, almost impossible comeback needed, he’s going to lay down and rely on his God given talent? No, not when he’s gotten this much attention. Not when it’s the only card left to play.
That’s where us as fans come into play. I’m expecting the team to win Game 5 handily (it’s the Sixers so famous last words). But that isn’t quite good enough after the shit we had to put up with. I don’t want to beat them, I want to bury them. Especially Dudley. I want the Wells Fargo Center to take the souls of players who attack us like that. If our reputation is being ruthless, why don’t we turn that energy on someone that deserves it? Sometimes as a fan base, we can be too negative towards our own. We unleash friendly fire. Why not change that bad rap and finish the series on the opposite side of the booing spectrum!
We’ve had our whole city, fan base, coach and players ripped all series. From the booing, to the performances, to somehow Jared Dudley becoming a fan favorite out of hate for the 76ers. I can’t stand it, but it’s a reality I am now accepting: we’re the bad guys. But, damn it, it’s a really fucking good week to be the bad guy (Thanos and The Night King are about to kill your favorite cast members and shatter your hearts into pieces). So, who cares if we are the bad guy too because we lay into some over the hill “enforcer” who’s closer to being an NBA analyst then a productive NBA player. It’s the year of the villain and we can fit that role just fine.
Thank you Jared Dudley. You lit a fire under the ass of our players. You lit a fire under the ass of our fan base. Game 5 it’ll all blend perfectly together in a boo infested massacre. You wanted chaos, here you go. You earned it.