Alvin Gentry is the king of social media among NBA coaches. Which is a very, very small hill to climb -- can you really picture Phil Jackson trying to fit his comments in 140 characters? But credit Gentry, he’s on top of it.
In addition to having his own twitter account, he’s a texter, he told Paul Coro for his Suns’ blog. Gentry picked it up because he wanted to get closer to Amare Stoudemire, who prefers texting.
Speaking of Stoudemire, the All-Star has pulled Gentry into another social realm -- text messaging. Part of Gentry’s attempt to be closer to Stoudemire than his previous coaches was to learn how to text, Stoudemire’s preferred off-court communication line. He started it in the summer and apparently has continued it during the season, judging from Gentry’s recent comments about Stoudemire’s growth of late...
“It’s almost like having your own kid. When you see him maturing and getting better in certain areas, you become real proud of him. I just sent him a text and told him how proud I was of him and the progress he’s made not just on the court but off the court also. And, yes, I did text him and it took about 20 minutes to get that out.”
Gentry and Stoudemire, BFF.
