It doesn’t even matter that all of Brazil hates Nene for skipping out on his alleged “duty” to play for the national team. He’s the one who placed more importance on health than nationalism, and now he’s looking quick and springy at the grand old age of 35. Nene took good care of his body, and his reward is to keep earning NBA paychecks, and to teach young ones like Thon Maker how the NBA game is played.
While watching the first half of this game, I literally said out loud, “Nene is roasting us.” Harden and CP3 both played poorly in the first half from a scoring perspective, so it fell on Nene and his sixteen points to keep the Rockets in the game. The sad part about this VINTAGE NENE performance is that it makes Clint Capela’s all-star-esque season slightly less prestigious; if old-ass Nene can look like a god playing with Harden and CP3, then it diminishes Capela’s ability to do the same. If Nene really cared about getting Capela an all-star berth, he would have scored 4 points on 2-of-10 shooting and purposely mishandled all the passes that came to him.