ORLANDO, Fla. — After the Knicks’ Cleanthony Early was shot in his right knee while leaving a Queens club early Wednesday morning, players from the crosstown rival Nets expressed shock and sympathy for the young forward.
“It’s very unfortunate, because in a perfect world you should be able to go anywhere that you want to as far as enjoying yourself and just having a good time without certain consequences having to be dealt with,” Jarrett Jack (five points, 10 assists) said before the Nets’ 100-93 loss to the Magic. “But then again, you have to understand you’re a public figure. It’s different for us.”
“We’ve just got to understand the environment that we put ourselves in, just be a little more leery of it. Nobody deserves of warrants what happened to the young fella at all. But we’ve got to understand who we are at the end of the day.”
Early, 24, was robbed by six thieves, losing an iPhone, two gold chains, the gold caps off his teeth, and eventually shot after leaving the CityScapes gentlemen’s club with girlfriend just after 4 a.m.
“It’s unfortunate and you don’t wish that on anybody,’’ Joe Johnson said. “The only thing you can do at this point is pray for him. Hopefully he bounces back. It’s a tough spot. … It’s a tough topic to even talk about, because we all are guilty of just hanging out trying to enjoy ourselves, not trying to cause any harm. I’m sure that’s what he was just trying to do. I’m sure he never expected anything like this to happen. But as you see it’s capable of happening so you have to really be careful.’’
Jack admitted New York was a little different in making the target bigger.
“Since being in New York for a couple years, and how seriously sports are taken in this city, you’re a lot more visible than your typical team. When the Knicks draft somebody it’s headline news, or when they trade for somebody it’s headline news,’’ said Jack. “That’s where New York separates itself from a lot of cities. That can be good and bad, but I think you’ve just got to understand what it is and just take it for what it’s worth.
“Whenever I go somewhere … day or night, we always survey the crowd. We always understand what the crowd is wherever we’re going. Like I said, no matter where you go, no one deserves for that to happen.” A lot of people want to say ‘It’s his fault, he shouldn’t have been [out]. How is it his fault?”
“Could we have done some things better? Yeah. But don’t make it look like that was supposed to happen to him because he was outside at a certain point in time of the night. I don’t like the way people put that together at all. There were a number other people who were out at that time, too. If there was someone that was walking to the library, should they have harm done to them as well? No.’’
Brook Lopez (24 points, 13 rebounds, five blocks) got a chance to check up on the house he’s having built in Orlando.
“Yeah its going well. We broke ground a month-and-a-half ago,’’ said Lopez, adding it would be done a year from now.
Bojan Bogdanovic had 20 points and six boards in 38 minutes, throwing down a nasty fourth-quarter lefty dunk that got the Nets bench to its feet.
“I struggled on the 3-point shot, many easy shots that I did not knock down,’’ Bogdanovic said. “I have to stay aggressive be an important part of the team to knock down those shots that I have.’’
After coach Lionel Hollins benched Jack and Bogdanovic for Shane Larkin and Wayne Ellington at halftime of Monday’s game in Miami, he went back to his regular lineup against Orlando.