Full-court press
Social media has taken NBA drama off court, too — for better or worse
Dave McMenamin was watching the Super Bowl when he briefly became part of the growing news cycle he usually is responsible for covering as ESPN’s Lakers reporter.
LeBron James tweeted McMenamin’s name — along with several others — during the sluggish Patriots win, and the reporter’s phone exploded.
“My phone blew up. Not just my mentions, but messages from anywhere from high school through college buddies to other media friends. You can see the reach of it,” McMenamin said. “The game wasn’t that entertaining, so that was the entertainment for the rest of the afternoon.”
That reach comes from all celebrities, but in the NBA it has become an art form. It has changed the way the league is covered, expanding it to a 24/7/365 experience for reporters, fans and the players themselves. The NBA All-Star Game and the festivities around it, which are being held in Charlotte, N.C., this weekend, used to be where all the powerful forces in the league came together. Now, that has a potential to happen on a nightly basis.
“I love it. I love players that aren’t afraid to push the envelope, right or wrong,” TNT analyst Reggie Miller said. “Again, we all stepped in some on Twitter and we’ve all said things we wished we could pull back. I’d still rather [have] honesty from athletes, as opposed to someone who is fake.
“And I hope the NBA would feel the same way. You may not like my message or the way I say my message, but it is correct and factual. I want my athletes being true to themselves, instead of built and manufactured and packaged in a lab somewhere.”
The interaction between players on Twitter — whether it’s an Enes Kanter-Spencer Dinwiddie feud over which is the best team in New York or Joel Embiid dropping an 86-character “lol” after the Knicks traded Kristaps Porzingis — is mostly entertainment. It’s interacting outside of that circle where things can get complex.
Kevin Durant seems to be in the middle of that. The Warriors star has fought with fans through a burner Twitter account and got busted doing so. He also recently went on a rant against the media over the perception his post-Porzingis-trade silence was a sign he was plotting to leave Golden State for the Knicks in free agency.
“I can’t relate to him having 17 million Twitter followers, but I have [186,000] and I have days where for whatever reason a report I put out was perceived in a negative manner,” said McMenamin, who has covered the sport for 13 years. “You open up your phone and you feel like you have a mob yelling at you and it’s not a good feeling.
“To live in that every day to the umpteenth degree if you are a superstar athlete, like Durant, it challenges your psyche. I am not so sure it’s a good thing in the long run. That’s more of a societal issue, but it touches the NBA with a heavy hand. … In a way the NBA is made for social med dia and benefitted from it g greatly, but it’s changed ra rather rapidly and we’ll see a fe few years from now if that’s u ultimately for the best or to it its detriment.” There are positive connecti tions, as well. Many players h have used it to give fans a g glimpse into their private li lives and gone behind the s scenes what it is like to get re ready for an NBA season. “I was the biggest Dominiq ique [Wilkins] fan in the world,” TNT analyst and former Kings star Chris Webber said. “The only things I had to keep me close to him was a VHS tape showing the same dunk and maybe a poster. … The NBA really embraces it more than any other league because they know the fans want so much. It does not always have to be salacious headlines or fighting, but just [Russell] Westbrook posting a picture of his son the night before a game.”