3 Athletes ‘ hacked’ on social media

The most trite excuse in sport is trotted out by athletes who test positive for performance- enhancing drugs: “I never knowingly took an illegal substance.” And second place belongs to athletes who post something they shouldn’t on social media: “I was hacked.” That generally prompts plenty of eye- rolling and very little sympathy, as discovered this week by a couple of basketballers. First, we saw Kristaps Porzingis tweet “LA Clippers” and a succession of smiley emojis, a message sent after reports emerged that several teams had inquired about trading for the Knicks star. Then, in response to critical comments from former Celtics teammates, Ray Allen posted a picture of him beating Boston while wearing a Miami Heat uniform. Neither man fooled anyone, and the same can be said of the following athletes. . .

1 Ty Lawson

In 2010, Lawson observed that Reggie Bush had won a Super Bowl while dating Kim Kardashian and Lamar Odom had won an NBA title while dating Khloe Kardashian, then pointed out the trend. “I heard if u hit a kardashian u win a championship. Kim k holla me!!! I need ya for 17 min”. The Denver Nuggets guard then claimed he had lost his phone the night before.

2 Irina Rodnina

Rodnina, a former Olympic gold medallist in figure skating, shared a racist photoshopped image of Barack Obama in 2012 and, after being criticised, tweeted, “Freedom of speech is freedom!” Then, when called upon to light the torch before the Sochi Olympics, the Russian deleted the tweets and said she had been hacked.

3 LeSean McCoy

The then- Philadelphia Eagles running back engaged in a brutal Twitter spat with the mother of his child in 2013, calling her, among other things, a “dirty alley girl” and a “waste of life”. But after receiving some blowback, he found an elegant solution, tweeting one word — “Hacked” — and deleting his account entirely. Smart move: can’t be hacked if there’s nothing to hack.