For a while, there, Jayson Williams was Mr. Net. He eschewed larger free agent offers to stay with the team in 1995, developing into one of the league's better rebounders -- a more verbose version of Dennis Rodman with everyman appeal. Following the NBA's lockout in 1998, Williams even donated thousands of dollars to displaced staffers at the Meadowlands in East Rutherford, New Jersey; where the Nets played back then. Soon after, a broken leg and broken post-NBA lifestyle resulted in a string of arrests that led to 18 months spent on Rikers Island, a facility he was released from earlier this month. The Nets did not contact Williams upon his release from jail. And, as you'd expect, Williams was not invited to the ceremony intended to celebrate the team's final game in New Jersey on Monday night. Through a spokesman, though, Jayson appears to be taking the team's denouement in stride. From the New York Daily News : "I don't think there is a person who loves the Nets as much as I do — from our fans, all the employees in the arenas, the front office personnel and the owners," Williams said through his longtime friend and manager, Akhtar Farzaie . "I will always be loyal to our fans and the Nets."

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