A lot of basketball fans were blown away last summer when they found out Kevin Durant had a secret account that he used to defend himself online. Well, it turns out apparently he wasn’t the only one in the NBA guilty of doing that.
Shortly after the Philadelphia 76ers extended head coach Brett Brown’s contract, a report from The Ringer’s Ben Detrick surfaced alleging that Sixers general manager Bryan Colangelo has been using fake Twitter accounts to criticize former and current players and colleagues across the NBA.
Detrick talks about how there were five specific “fan” accounts that were used to post tweets and reply to other fans, but only one of the five accounts remains a public account (Eric jr aka @AlVic40117560).
The Ringer writer reached out to the team shortly after to get some information about the five accounts, but ended up getting this statement from the team instead.
"Like many of my colleagues in sports, I have used social media as a means to keep up with the news," Colangelo said in the statement. "While I have never posted anything whatsoever on social media, I have used the @Phila1234567 Twitter account referenced in this story to monitor our industry and other current events. This storyline is disturbing to me on many levels, as I am not familiar with any of the other accounts that have been brought to my attention, nor do I know who is behind them or what their motives may be in using them."
The account joined Twitter back in April 2016 and there are plenty of tweets that are full of negative comments and messages defending Colangelo’s moves.
According to Detrick, his information came from a source that worked in artificial intelligence who used an open-source data analysis tool to link five accounts through commonalities after noticing a “bunchy of weird tweets” directed at Sixers writers.
One current member of the Sixers weighed in after the news surfaced and you can probably guess who it was...
Embiid also spoke to ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski about the current situation and said Colangelo denied the story.
You can read more about the investigation and the burner accounts here.
(H/T The Ringer)
