Over the last few years, Twitter has completely changed the NBA experience. It gives basketball fans a place to congregate online in order to discuss breaking news or thrilling games. It gives reporters a mechanism to get their scoops to readers as quickly as possible, without having to worry about wasting precious moments for the sake of processing and editing. And, most famously: it provides a means of direct communication between the previously distant athlete and the everyman -- glimpses into the mind of a professional ballplayer 140 characters at a time.
During the lockout, the league saw what could happen when a few hundred frustrated players took to social media to air their grievances. It was uncoordinated, sometimes ill-informed, and other times embarrassing, but players nonetheless had a digital megaphone with which to broadcast their perspectives directly to the fans. Some NBAers were more successful in that regard than others, but the lack of censorship was refreshing.
Yet even with a new collective bargaining agreement in place -- and the NBA back in business as a result -- Danny Granger and Jason Richardson have continued tweeting with the same freedom. Both were clearly peeved by the NBA’s decision to nix a potential three-way deal that would have sent Chris Paul to the Lakers on Thursday, and rightfully so. But the manner in which both players lashed out at the league was a bit surprising, even when considering the animosity built up between the players and the NBA over the last few months.
Granger was up first, laying down some pretty heavy snark:
Then, following the public release of an email (via Yahoo Sports) from Cavs owner Dan Gilbert that supposedly set the stopping of the trade in action, Jason Richardson offered the following:
Both players disregarded the possibility of a league-issued fine in order to voice their opinions on an incredibly important event. Criticizing Stern, the league, and the owner of another team aren’t commonly considered to be acceptable NBA player behaviors, but the league has made this an extenuating circumstance by intervening in the basketball decisions of individual teams. Odds are that plenty of other players are similarly incensed by Thursday’s events, but it’ll be interesting to see what form that anger takes -- in social media or otherwise.