The Dream of Being Invisible

Jay-Z has many responsibilities as Corporate America's Hypeman the Self-Appointed King of Brooklyn. After deciding to stop making good albums in 2003, he has worn many overpriced hats. Sadly, when Jay-Z started an agency for athletes he could no longer serve as the Nets mascot because it was a conflict of interest. He still frequently attends games, though, in hopes of getting to hang out with his old friend from the Marcy Houses, Mikhail Prokhorov. Jay-Z acts as the fan all Nets fans can rally around, which must be why they don't stand up with under three minutes left in a tied playoff game. Being the Nets most important fan must be very hard for him because he is always visible in his front row seats (when they aren't empty for the first 7 minutes of the second half) and doesn't know how scoring works in basketball.

BOOOOOOOOR-RING!!! BOOOOOOOOOR-RING!!! BOOOOOOOOOR-RING!!!

In this next clip, Ray Allen is at the free-throw line trying to essentially ice the game for the Heat by putting them up five with 10 seconds left to play. Jay-Z can be seen in the upper right hand corner, and as always, is desperately trying to fit in. When Ray hits the dagger free throw, Jay-Z does what anyone completely lost at a sporting event with only the knowledge that people try to get a ball through a hoop would do: he claps. He then looks up to the scoreboard to see how this particular ball going through this hoop changes the large numbers next to the picture of the flaming basketball and B-Shield. When he realizes nobody else around him is clapping, he claps again to make it appear he knows something nobody else does. I used to do the same thing all the time in Middle School when I laughed because someone said something that I thought was sexual innuendo, but turned out to just be wanting a PB&J sandwich or something. I just kept laughing to make it seem like I was being ironic, or something. This is what people do when they want to be cool, but know they never will be. Maybe the next time Jay-Z hangs out with Warren Buffet and Bloomberg he can get some tips.

Jay-Z not knowing how basketball works also explains the following video clip. I foolishly assumed this was just Jay-Z's enormous ego being crushed when Lebron talked to the person sitting next to Beyonce instead of Brooklyn's First Couple. It now seems more likely Lebron used some highly technical basketball terminology like, "I'm going for 50" and Jay-Z immediately became uncomfortable because he didn't know what was going on.

Well, I wouldn't worry about it too much, 'Hov, as as I'm sure any Nets fans sitting around you probably told you, the Nets will get 'em when the playoffs start.