Glen "Big Baby" Davis of the Boston Celtics is a lovable soul. Until he doesn't get a contract.
At least that was the conclusion reached by the more than 1,600 people who followed him on Twitter at twitter.com/bigbabybball.
Despite being a popular member of the Celtics roster, the team hasn't offered him a contract. So his alleged Twitter page tweeted July 14: "Man I love Boston, this is where I started my career! But sometimes you forget that this is a business!!!!"
Which he then followed up with: "celtic have to do what best for them and you guys the fans !You guys need to facebook or myspace and tweet everybody. Keep Bigbaby in bos."
It is your remit to decide whether Big Baby really is a big baby. But he or his altered ego continued in a hurt vein on August 4: "Anybody knows what's going on with the celtics? Cause I don't !!!!!"
On August 6, he became more conciliatory: "Thanks for the love guys !! I can't blame the celtics !! They are doing what's best for the club."
As the media began picking up on Davis' discomfort, he suddenly went to Celtics management and declared that the Twitter page was not his.
Most commentators seem to believe this. Patrick Mauro of NBA blog "Protect the Paint" (Disclosure: I have been known to write there, but please don't let that stop you from clicking the link) was one. He suggested: "If it is him, you'd think he'd just pull a Brian Wilson--the San Francisco Giants' closer who tweeted about fun on the road--then quickly eliminated the account when those tweets threatened to cause an uproar."
The Big Baby account is still active, although the poster has since tweeted: "You really think this the real Bigbaby!!!! If you think so !!!your wrong..."
But isn't there something a little more disturbing here? Yes, you could imagine by inspecting closely that the likelihood was that this feed was a hoax. This Big Baby was following only nine people--all of them rather attractive women, including Solange Knowles and Kim Kardashian.
And every pulsing being is surely aware that no NBA player would risk having his ego dampened by not following Shaq and some other NBA luminaries. Following them adds to the player's own cachet--especially a fringe star such as Davis.
But the bigger issue resides with Twitter. If you are going to be the "pulse of the planet," as its leaked plans suggest, then surely planet dwellers have a right to know who and what is really out there.
Twitter has trumpeted its "Verified Account" system, whereby a nice tick is given to those whose feeds reflect their true selves. However, this system seems to be entering fruition very slowly.
It is still, therefore, perfectly reasonable to believe that Big Baby's Twitter page was, indeed, written by him or by one of his associates in order to persuade the Celtics to offer him a contract. It is perfectly reasonable to believe that he disowned it when he feared the tweets might backfire and when he saw that perhaps he wasn't quite as marketable as he had hoped.
As Mauro said: "Was he really deluded into thinking there was a robust market for a guy pushing 300 pounds coming off a season in which he averaged 7 points and 4 rebounds in 76 games?
Even if Davis had nothing to do with this Twitter page, one can see why many, including those in the Celtics front office, might believe that he did.
Do the folks in the Twitterdome not feel that perhaps they might have to accelerate the verifiability of their feeds before material damage has been done?
I wonder where Big Baby will be playing next year. And I wonder what kind of contract he might get.
You don't want some old chap in a large check jacket with a florid pocket handkerchief staring up into a basketball player's nostrils and asking him inane mundanities.
No, you want to hang on the every direct word of your favorite, or perhaps not quite so favorite, athlete.
For you, therefore, there is Jockipedia. Oh, yes, the very name might make you think that this is Wikipedia for jocks. But it's more than that. Well, not really.
Jockipedia, the creation of a former network news producer called Douglas Warshaw, is your own encyclopedia of every musing that emerges from a famous athlete's tonsils or touch-screen telephone.
It allows you to surf by athlete's name, by league, even by country. And each entry looks not merely at such frippery as Twitter. No, it delves into the athlete's personal blog site, their Facebook page, MySpace page, their charity site, and even their contributions to Flickr.
You can absorb Estonian tennis player Kaia Kanepi's personal Web site (it's really a little dull), just as readily as you can speedily keep up to date with the Twitter feed of Red Sox power (occasionally) hitter David Ortiz. Yes, all two of his tweets.
Warshaw told the New York Times: "The Tower of Babel is getting bigger (....) The desire to find people will just get bigger. It just is. It's like gravity. Every day, more and more athletes, not just the professionals, are doing this online."
Warshaw also has very lofty goals for his informational tower: to have every athlete in the world included on Jockipedia. Naturally, he will need a little help from many eagle-eyed Estonians, anal Albanians, baseball-loving potheads, and others before he can reach his goal.
Still, would life really be worth living if we couldn't have instant access to the Twitter musings of, say, Lakers' splendidly erratic shooting guard, Sasha Vujacic? Here is the very latest: "No matter what they say to you! No matter what is thrown upon/against you! Never lose your believe! Never lose focus! Dreams DO come true!"
Jockipedia. Where the Shakespeare in every athlete is revealed in all its glory.
It's one thing to go and play with LeBron James. It's quite another to face Bruce Manley.
Perhaps you are not yet familiar with the name. Manley is something of a YouTube cult hero for his rather picturesque basketball trick shot skills.
Somehow, Shaquille O'Neal, the newest Cleveland Cavalier, saw the video. Apparently, his ego was piqued even more than when he saw Orlando's Dwight Howard claim to be Superman.
So what did the NBA's king of social networking do? He Twittered a challenge to a HORSEing duel.
"i wanna play this guy n horse for a thousand dollars, find him pls http://bit.ly/CK5nk," read Shaq's tweet.
According to the HoopDoctors.com, Manley has accepted Shaq's challenge and the contest should happen some time in July. So I really would encourage everyone to look at the YouTube video I have embedded.
If you are not utterly astonished by his tree-point shot, then your emotions have left you for another woman. And, yes, I said tree-point shot--no spelling mistake.
As for the shot Manley hits totally blind from behind a wall, well, if that isn't extraordinary talent then I am the new chief executive officer of the Golden State Warriors.
Will Shaq be able to compete against this kind of ability? It will be very interesting which H-O-R-S-E rules they choose to play. But, if I were a betting man, and perish the thought, I would be betting Manley.
Unless, of course, there's some very fine editing going on here.
The Golden State Warriors don't play defense--except, perhaps, when it comes to the indefensible.
Please imagine you're a disgruntled Warriors fan. For two seasons, everything seemed to suddenly and strangely go well. After what felt like 20 seasons of desperation, playoffs were reached. No. 1 seeds were defeated.
Then, for reasons that seem all too evident to those who give the Warriors money (disclosure: myself included), there is a handbasket drifting downward from purgatory with a large Warriors logo printed on its side.
Naturally, fans voice their views on various sites. One of which is WarriorsWorld.net. Much of the commentary lately has been of a negative nature.
One shining beacon of light was offered by "Flunkster Dude." Commenting on a season-ticket holder conference call hosted by General Manager Larry Riley, President Robert Rowell and TV play-by-play man Bob Fitzgerald, he wrote: "I actually enjoyed the call and appreciate their honesty."
Which not so many other commenters did. Even fewer do now, as the WarriorsWorld.net chaps traced the IP back to a certain office. You're there already, aren't you? Yes, to the office of the Golden State Warriors.
Flunkster Dude is, in fact, Flackster Dude. Real name, Raymond Ridder, PR man for the Golden State Warriors.
The journalist who published the revelation this week, Tim Kawakami of the San Jose Mercury News, received a very quaint response from Ridder: "It was 100% me. And I'll take 100% responsibility, if anybody thinks I did anything wrong. It was completely on my own. I've never been told to do anything by anybody here. It was just me."
Naturally, I enjoyed his response and appreciated his honesty. Especially the part about never having been told to do anything by anybody.
However, Flunkster Dude was not done. He continued to offer his honesty in a most disarming way: "It was nothing malicious at all. I just wanted to get the conversation going in a positive direction-I thought we had a good conference call, I had some good conversations with some season-ticket-holders, then I got to my office and I looked on the internet and all I saw was negative comments, complaints, nothing positive."
So the obvious step for a fine PR chappy was to hide that he was a fine PR chappy, in the bizarre hope that, by leaving a positive comment, all like-thinking, enlightened fans, marveling at the Warriors 29 wins last season, would emerge from beneath some unseen parquet and toss more garlands on top of his.
Now here's the fun part. (You thought there wouldn't be a fun part?) This doesn't appear to be the first time Flunkster Dude has flacked his wings and flown.
He admitted to Kawakami that he had posted four other bonmots on WW.net. All, you will be overwhelmed to hear, were dunks on behalf of management.
One was even a negative comment about one of the better (but not, sadly, better-dressed) journalists who follow the Warriors, a tall man who plays a mean game of pickup (he's played and squashed some friends of mine), Matt Steinmetz.
You might think that Flunkster Dude has flunked the very first test of social media.
You might think that someone who posts anonymously about honesty, when himself being just slightly less than entirely honest about his interest in the matter, might just think about a career in politics.
However, I might think that you have never been a fan of the most maddening, ridiculous, disquieting, arrogant, ignorant and, just occasionally, sickeningly lovable mess that is the Golden State Warriors.
I will not hear anyone criticize their sublime fish and chips, though.
(Disclosure and, um, an ad: I appear regularly on Patrick Mauro's nationally syndicated show on Sports Byline USA, Sundays at 11 p.m. Honestly.)
You have called your coach out. You have dreamed that you would win. Then you go and beat the Boston Celtics in their own haughty arena in Sunday's Game 7 of the playoffs, a win that means you will now face off with LeBron James.
You are Dwight Howard of the Orlando Magic, so whom do you thank?
Traditionally, a player might thank his family, his coach, his teammates, his very special conditioning coach. But, as if to prove just how much the world has changed, Dwight Howard went in a different direction.
Oh, he thanked God. As many athletes do these days, because they want everyone to know that deity was on their side and, not, quite clearly, on the opponent's.
But just as TNT interviewer David Aldridge was being told to wrap Howard up, the Supermanish center insisted he needed to mention some other celestial beings. Yes, his Twitter fans.
His Twitter fans, I tell you.
Howard isn't remotely in Shaq territory when it comes to Twitter. Shaquille O'Neal, who now has reached the celebrity nirvana of 1 million followers, predicted an Orlando win.
However, Howard knows the power of heavenly marketing. He insisted on thanking each of his 61,463 Twitter followers.
I am not sure what he was thanking them for.
But I know that somewhere in some corner of Twitter Central, someone is saying: "Now how much do you think this thing's worth?"
Shaquille O'Neal and Mark Cuban are deeply confirmed Twitterers.
They have different styles but their fingers seem rarely to leave their keyboards. Perhaps one can even blame sore Twitter-finger for Shaq's poor free-throw percentage.
However, I have been following a bizarre Twitter exchange between the two NBA personalities, one that has now blossomed into strong rumors that Shaq wants to be traded to Cuban's Dallas Mavericks.
It all began on Saturday when Shaq, who has almost 600,000 followers, tweeted: "I'm lookin foor u mark cuban".
The Dallas Mavericks owner replied: "you know where i live.." Which he then followed up with: "And make sure to wear your best ShaqAlbert outfit to the arena tomorrow".
Well, Shaq then maintained a Twitter silence. While Cuban made the plot thicken during the game between the Mavs and Shaq's Phoenix Suns on Sunday by tweeting: "Gotta Love @The_Real_Shaq 's heart. dude never lets up."
It seems that a meeting between the two was then arranged, as Cuban tweeted to Shaq at 6:50 a.m. on Monday: "Not happy about it, but will be there." A couple of hours later, he tweeted again: "shaq found me. wish I could say what happened. I kept my cool."
I, too, wish I could say what happened between these two most engaging of characters. Did they have a row or a love-in? Did they have a free-throw competition? Why did Cuban need to keep his cool? Did Shaq claim he was a better tweeter?
However, just when I had decided that this must merely have been one weird conversation between the two of them, I noticed some deeply researched gossip suggesting that Shaq might, indeed, wish to continue his tweeting days in Dallas.
The first ever Twitter-brokered NBA trade? Stranger things have happened. But not many.
He hasn't twittered it yet, but I am suddenly full of belief that Shaquille O'Neal is about to buy a Smart car.
What has driven me to this "yes, we can" moment? Why, the first-ever NBA Green Week.
Launched Thursday, this is the NBA's attempt to reduce its carbon footprint (size 45).
It's a footprint that is characterized by large, pimped-out SUVs, vast, flashing scoreboards, long flights in 757s to New York and Los Angeles, and, especially, the infinite noxious detritus from its Pistons--exemplified by the fumes regularly emitted by power forward (and technical foul king) Rasheed Wallace.
The NBA has gotten its teams together to launch Green Week with the National Resources Defense Council, a green organization that proudly whispers the tagline: "The Earth's Best Defense." (This might cause a few of the Boston Celtics to cough a little furiously.)
The NBA even persuaded renowned, um, power hitter, Robert Redford to introduce the week on YouTube.
And, should you be so inclined (though it might burn up quite some laptop power), there are seven NBA videos to encourage you to change your position on the environment from center to power forward.
You can see members of the Houston Rockets and the Atlanta Hawks planting trees. You can enjoy Louis Amundson of the Phoenix Suns riding his bike to work. And you can commune with the Suns' Steve Nash as he talks about getting solar panels on the arena roof in Phoenix and about his clever basketball shoes made from recyclable materials.
Nash is one player who, when it comes to preaching, would never utter Allen Iverson's famous complaint: "Practice?? We're talking about practice?"
Nash lives in New York during the off-season and doesn't even keep a car there. Yet as you read on the special NBA site about the Denver Nuggets, the Charlotte Bobcats and the Chicago Bulls all wearing uniforms and socks made from 45 percent organic cotton, you wonder where the greenery begins and the greenbacks end.
It's all very well for the Toronto Raptors to offer a 25 percent discount to anyone who shows up with a ticket from public transportation. And it's lovely that any Minnesota Timberwolves fan who arrives by bus, train or, who knows, balloon for the game on Sunday will get a free upper-level ticket.
But these are teams that drying paint refuses to watch.
Then there's the extra-special opportunity for fans to purchase 100 percent organic-cotton shooting shirts and recycled Spalding basketballs.
As any fan of the Golden State Warriors will tell you, something is better than nothing. But wouldn't it be the ultimate joy if LeBron James suddenly rolled up to a game in a Prius with recycled, personalized hubcaps?
I mean, the NBA is where amazing happens, right?
Please make contact with that deep and joyous part of you that is passive-aggressive.
Yes, the part of you that wants to remove the man sitting and spitting in the seat in front of you at an NFL game, or the lady who is flipping everyone off at a baseball game (probably a Yankees fan). Yes, the part of you that doesn't want to get involved in finger gestures, f-words, or fisticuffs.
Rejoice, because the wonders of texting can now be brought to bear down on the miscreants of the sports arena. All you have to do is know one number and text the nature of the problem you're having with another fan to that number.
Twenty-nine of the 32 NFL stadiums employ the service--described by ESPN's Rick Reilly as "tattletexting." So do many Major League Baseball, NBA and, yes, even NCAA March Madness games. (Hockey has it too. But surely, one would only want to text to get the slobbering, scuffling players off the ice.)
The Cincinnati Bengals, a team that seems to have more antisocial elements on its team than in its seats, has the lovely tattletexting number 513-381-JERK.
Reilly's column reveals some of the real texts collected by one of the companies involved in this highly entertaining enterprise, In Stadium Solutions (please, will someone tell companies that "solutions" is so 1997?):
Lady in turquoise tank is flipping people off and cursing sec 235 row 14. (Turquoise has always been a suspicious color.)
How about Drunk guy passed out in my seat & can't wake him up sec 442? (Perhaps he wants you to take his seat? It might be better.)
You will unquestionably be disturbed by Guy in black jacket is exposing himself to people. Section 408 row 4 seat 7. He has spikey hair. (Spikey hair? As Reilly worries, "Where?")
"The fan that was removed was wearing turquoise and picking her nose repeatedly during free-throw attempts."
(Credit: CC Inbound Pass)Scott Meyers of ISS told ESPN: Only about 5 percent of the texts we get are pranks." Yes, people have texted to suggest that the refs, the players, or the coaches be removed, though none has been known to come from Mark Cuban, as he seems to favor Twitter.
The tattletexting system is very simple. It doesn't just take the texter's word for it. The message goes through to closed-circuit camera operators, who check to see whether the lady in turquoise, the passed-out dude, or the exposed spikey hair really exist.
However, one can only imagine if, one day, an especially passive-aggressive owner, which would exclude both Cuban and Al Davis of the Oakland Raiders, might use the service to fire a coach or trade a player.
Imagine, the Miami Heat gets a new, slippery owner. He decides the save money. He decides he doesn't need star guard Dwayne Wade. He decides to scale a new height of passive aggression.
"Excuse me, Mr. Dwayne Wade," a large individual in uniform might whisper to Wade at practice. "Please come with me. You've just been traded to the Clippers."
As Wade tries to come to terms with a potential life in the NBA equivalent of a row boat with no oars, the large man in uniform whispers: "The owner thought this was the most, you know, modern, sensitive way to do it."
"Huh?" Wade stammers.
"Well, you know, you all those T-Mobile commercials you do. The owner thought you'd respect him more for doing this by text."
(Updated 12.23PST. Herewith Mark Cuban's latest Twittered news- with Dallas being smoked by Cleveland, Cuban tweeted: "just found out got fined25k by nba.) nice". Oh, Lordy.)
How can anyone not enjoy Mark Cuban?
A man who danced passably well on "Dancing with the Stars". A man who tends to say frightfully sensible things as loudly as possible in the hope that someone will hear. And a man who has been fined a total of $1.5million, some of it for complaining about NBA refs.
It seems as if he has been strangely quiet on that subject for a while. Until Friday, when he just couldn't take it any more. What does the modern human do when he just can't take it any more? He twitters.
A little context: Cuban's Dallas Mavericks aren't all that good this year. They might just scrape into the playoffs, but they wouldn't even scare the bobcat who walked into an Arizona bar last night.
On Friday they played the Denver Nuggets, a team that is slightly better, but also a team that has as one of its members, JR Smith. Regular Cubanists will know that the Mavericks' owner was fined $25,000 for walking onto the court in January and yelling at Smith.
Frankly, I've wanted to do that myself once or twice. The man's body is so dense with tattoos that it looks like a decaying English country house drawing room wall and he always seems to play with a little scowl. He also always plays well against my Golden State Warriors, so that might have something to do with it.
In any case, after a perceived Smith transgression, Cuban tweeted: "how do they not call a tech on JR Smith for coming off the bench to taunt our player on the ground?"
Which he then followed up with: "scary part of that play: Same crew chief from game in Denver where they missed call - last play of the game & 1st JRSmith/Wright issue."
Fights aren't scary. Crew chiefs are.
One can only imagine how the NBA, an organization that seems uncomfortable with Cuban largely because he's more intelligent than most of its members, will react to his modern form of heckling.
And just in case you were wondering whether it really was Mark Cuban doing the twittering, may I offer you his latest tweet: "just so you know, I dont use a "ghost twitter" like some folks do:)"
Oh, if only they'd make him commissioner of the NBA. What fun we'd all have. Basketball would be better for it, too.
You're Charlie Villanueva, power forward for the NBA's Milwaukee Bucks. You're playing the Boston Celtics. It's halftime. The game is tied. What do you do?
Yes, you send a tweet on Twitter.
Villanueva's read: "In da locker room, snuck to post my twitt. We're playing the Celtics, tie ball game at da half. Coach wants more toughness. I gotta step up."
His Twitter screen name is CV31 (yes, his initials and number), and his highly informative live bulletin didn't exactly make his coach, Scott Skiles, a squat little man with a charming scowl, warm to the concept of socially networking.
"Anything that gives the impression that we're not serious and focused at all times is not the correct way we want to go about our business," Skiles told Fox Sports.
The strange thing is that not only did the Bucks win, but Villanueva had a team-high 19 points.
As he told his Twitter followers in several tweets after the game: "The halftime twitt actually motivated me (...) That's why I did it, plus of course to keep you guys in the loop of some live action."
I believe that's Charlie in the headband. His iPhone may be in his pocket.
(Credit: CC Compujeramey)At least his coach didn't fine him. (Well, they won.) And he has continued "twitting." This, for example, from just an hour ago: "Man, I'm trying to do the best I can with the replies, but maaan there's way too much for me right now. 7pm game vs. Magic, hit ya later."
Ah, that NBA pressure.
Villanueva has been a tweeter for a couple of months, and his followers number in the four figures. But he's no Shaq. The Diesel has more than 340,000 followers. And I trust that you will be tickled by one of his tweets yesterday: "in the ritz carlton wt my agent whoeva touches me gets two tickets tomorro."
I wonder how many tickets he gave away.
