I Got Capped

Normally, I don’t write that much about Twitter, mainly because I understand that it is a fairly lame endeavor when it comes right down to it. It’s narcissistic, its mandated brevity makes it difficult to have a real discussion, and most of the people who use it are entirely uninteresting. Thus, publicly stating your affinity for Twitter makes you look like a putz to many people.

Regardless, the NBA world has really embraced this thing and, since the beginning of this season, the idea of doing a live-blog for a game has become obsolete since there is always a never-ending live-blog running on Twitter for every NBA game. And if you follow the right people, you get a great mix of insight, analysis, play-by-play and humor that is honestly better than any other possible in-game commentary aside from that of Hubie Brown.

So even if you are understandably someone with zero interest in using Twitter in any way in your personal life, you really are missing one of the best developments in hoops-watching if you don’t at least open an account and follow a few people. There are literally scores of NBA people using the service nightly from the official team tweeters and the NBA journalists/bloggers to the NBA players and the diehard fans of each franchise. But, at a minimum, you should open an account just to follow these 11 people:

@russbengston: Russ Bengston of SPRFLS. He’s the former editor in chief of Slam magazine who now spends most of his time riding bikes, dropping witticisms during NBA games and hating Rajon Rondo with every fiber of his being.

@HPbasketball: Matt Moore of Hardwood Paroxysm. He brings the closest thing there is to a Twitter play-by-play announcer — albeit an irreverent one who enjoys unabashedly bashing just about everyone.

@talkhoops: Zach Harper of Talk Hoops. His ability to quote the store clerk who [spoiler alert] buys Raymond’s gun from him in White Men Can’t Jump offsets his delusions that Greg Oden is better than Kevin Durant.

@StackMack: Holly MacKenzie of multiple basketball sites. She writes for Slam, sometimes writes for Hardwood Paryoxsm, lives in Canada, knows her hoops and enjoys black mambas.

@jeskeets: JE Skeets of Ball Don’t Lie. He doesn’t spout off during games as much as some of us idiots, but he always jumps in a few times per game with a nice quip, question or video.

@jose3030: Jose of 3030FM. Allowing guys like me, Russ and Zach to handle the bad joke department, Jose generally lays back in the cut until a particularly great dunk or Rafer Alston slap occurs — and then he miraculously turns the play into an animated GIF within 30 seconds and allows up to pass it around and say “HOLY poop that was amazing” or, more often, collectively laugh at Rafer Alston.

@courtside: Lady who runs NBA’s Finest. She’s like that gal that’ll sit back and watch you play yaself and all that right and see you sit there and know you lying — and she’ll take you to court after that cause she the inspectah.

@the_tigercub: Kat B. of somewhere. I actually have no idea who this chick is other than that she lives in Canada, drops hilarious gems about the NBA and might be hot. Call me.

@freedarko: Bethlehem Shoals, Dr. Lawyer Indian Chief and maybe one other guy from FreeDarko. The FreeDarko crew brings their FreeDarko stuff, which is great even if they should do it more frequently.

@BothTeamsPlayed: That’s me. The only reason I’m on this list and the only reason it is a Top 11 instead of a Top 10 is because I created it.

There are seriously about 25 more folks I could list, but here’s just a few others certainly worth your time: @TheNoLookPass (Rey-Rey of The No-Look Pass), @redsarmy (best Celtic tweeter out there and purveyor of RedsArmy), @inanemusings (Michelle, co-best Celtic tweeter out there and lady behind Inane Musings), @kevin_love (Kevin Love of the Timberwolves, who despite the media’s insistence on talking about Shaq is really the only current player who says anything interesting — something best illustrated by the fact that he recently asked the world: “anyone think that Scola looks like the dude from those UPS commercials???”), @LoveSoftRims (Cris B. of the hoops blog Love Soft Rims), @Nat77 (Nat of Heels on Hardwood and yet another example that Canadian women love them some Association), @Truth_About_It (person behind Truth About It, your home for all things DC Wizards), @ticktock (Sarah of Hornets Hype, the best NOLA/CP3 blog going), @SportsGuy33 (Sports Guy’s World‘s own Bill Simmons, who is new to the game and not all-NBA-all-the-time but obviously witty on the reg), @jalenrose (my boy Jalen Rose), @TheJetOnTNT (Kenny the Jet, aka, the dude poised to inherit Hubie’s analyst thrown).

And those are just the ones that immediately spring to mind. There are many more you will run into if you just start following the people all these people talk to. (Sincere apologies to those I left off.) UPDATE: Can’t believe I forgot to mention @JenniferKeane, which was a particularly huge mistake since her tweets are where amazing things like talking about Kendall Gill happen. And as I was getting drunk last night, this error combined with the revelation (to me, not the world…see comments) that the person behind @courtside is a woman led me to proclaim: “Upon further deliberation, I’m pretty sure females run the NBA Twitterverse.” Fix your collective face, male gender.

Anyway…

There was an actual point of starting this whole post before I got sidetracked. And it was let yall know that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar pretty much called me a douchebag last night. (Hence the headline…His nickname is “Cap.”) The backstory is that Kareem just started sideline-tweeting under the name @kaj33 like two weeks ago and has continued to do so during Laker Playoff games. But, for the most part, the only things he was saying were very obvious, cliched, Tim McCarver-like comments that the jesters of the NBA Twitter world had begun mocking with jabs like “Kareem thinks the team that’s ahead at the end of the 4th quarter will win” or “Kareem says that if the Lakers want to increase their intensity they should increase their defensive intensity.”

So last night, I, thinking I was clever, said: (“DM” means “direct message,” which is essentially like the Twitter version of sending someone a text message.)

@BothTeamPlayed: Just got a DM from @kaj33: “Grabbing a missed shot is the most effective way to get a rebound.”

Good times, right? Not so much.

Apparently, Kareem actually checks to see who’s talking to him more often than most celebrities with 50,000 followers and within about 30 seconds he sent me back a message saying:

@kaj33: @BothTeamsPlayed I didnt send you a DM -

So, yeah, essentially the guy who has the most points in NBA history pretty much told me to go fuck myself. I feel like Joey from Airplane!.

And, no, I’ve never been in a Turkish prison.

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Known Associates: Airplane!, Kareem, Lakers, Twitter