NBA: Durant gets harsh lesson in ways of social media
SAN FRANCISCO— For a man eager to make further inroads into the tech industry, Warriors forward Kevin Durant experienced a painful lesson on navigating social media.
After a fan pressed him why he left the Thunder for Golden State last summer, Durant responded on his official Twitter account with a critique of both the Thunder’s roster and Oklahoma City coach Billy Donovan.
So when Durant and his business partner Rich Kleiman appeared at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco on Tuesday, Durant did not shy away from an incident he admitted “was tough to deal with.”
Though Durant did not clarify if he originally attempted to make these comments through a different account impersonating as a Durant fan, the Warriors’ star admitted he typed the words.
“I don’t regret clapping back at anybody or talking to my fans on Twitter,” Durant said. “I do regret using my former coach’s name and the former organization I played for. That was childish. That was idiotic, all those type of words.
“I apologize for that.”
Most athletes blame social media gaffes toward either someone hacking their account, or an intern mistakenly posting something incorrect.
Durant, however, didn’t resort to such tactics.
“I use Twitter to engage with fans. I happened to take it a little too far.
“I don’t think I’ll ever stop engaging with my fans,” Durant said. “I really enjoy it and I think it’s a good way to connect us all. But I’ll scale that back a little bit right now and just focus on playing basketball.”