Jhe NBA, as a league, as a fandom, and as a general cultural phenomenon, is what could rightly be described as “painfully online.” From stars like Kevin Durant happily and regularly dabble in detractors on their own Twitter accounts, to media personalities like Josiah Johnson who’s made their entire career memorizing the league in real time, to the average fan who constantly updates his feeds during games Playoffs: It seems, in many ways, that the NBA knot exists in the internet ether as much as it does on hardwood.
The community that has formed around the NBA online has become perhaps its greatest current asset, keeping fans engaged and keeping the league in the news even in the offseason slump. In 2021, “NBA” was the No. 1 trending search on Google in the United States, and its official Instagram account has more followers than all the other major professional sports leagues in the country combined. Of course, there is strength in numbers. But as the uncle of a famous spider-human mutant wisely observed, with great power comes great responsibility. And, as evidenced last week, the power of the ever-changing internet hive mind can be a force for good, and a force for the opposite.
The full gamut of good, bad and deeply ugly from the NBA’s powerful online community has been on display over the past seven days. At one end of the spectrum was the case of the Phoenix Suns’ volatile and widely hated controlling owner Robert Sarver. After an independent investigation confirmed Baxter Holmes’ ESPN report that Sarver, and his sexist and racist comments, were leading a toxic work environment, the NBA issued a one-year suspension and a fine. $10 million widely seen as incredibly low. . After the internet outrage that followed from both fans and influential players like LeBron James and Chris Paul, PayPal said it would no longer sponsor the team if Sarver remained the owner. Within days, the real estate mogul announced he was selling his majority stake in the WNBA’s Suns and Phoenix Mercury, and he doesn’t like the hyperbole of postulating that without the league’s strong internet presence and of his fanbase, public pressure might never have reached a fever pitch high enough to force his hand. The potential benevolent power of a massive online community was demonstrated in Sarver’s downfall.
On the other end of the spectrum, a few days later, pretty much all of the downsides of a platform where millions of people gather behind anonymous avatars and respond to real-time newscasts have been put in place. prominently in the very chaotic breakdown of Boston history. The suspension of Celtics head coach Ime Udoka and its immediate aftermath, on Twitter. It all started with an incredibly vague and enigmatic message Tweeter Wednesday night by ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, containing very little information other than that Udoka was facing a yet-to-be-determined suspension for a yet-to-be-determined violation of team policy (and, of note, a very bizarre infographic featuring Wojnarowski’s own smiling likeness and Twitter handle). Predictably, this sent the Twittersphere into a tailspin, with fans and journalists confused and trying to parse what little information had been revealed. A few hours later, rival reporter Shams Charania of Athletic tweeted that sources said the violation in question was an “inappropriate intimate consensual relationship” with a Celtics employee. Shortly after, confirmation came that Udoka’s suspension would be for a full year.
First, NBA Twitter did what it does best by clarifying the nature of the transgression. The infidelity jokes were flying, as people started hearing about the story and gathered on the app to joke around and meme. But quickly, the light roasting tone of the high school cafeteria turned dark. Fans began attempting their own copy of the news to work out who the staffer in question was, in the process, doxxing all publicly listed female Celtics staffers, posting names and likenesses and even guessing which employee was the most likely culprit. on appearance. There was also anger and confusion over the length of the suspension (although it may have been implied that there was more to the story than just an office affair by nature of its duration, and many holes remained in the initial report). The Celtics camp was deafeningly silent as rumors swirled about their staff members, no clarification or context was offered by early reporters or anyone else, and at midnight on the coast west, the doxxing, guesswork, and general mayhem had completely taken on a life of their own. It was unequivocally ugly and entirely avoidable.
It’s probably not news to anyone reading this that a career path in sports is far from easy for women, even when they’re not unfairly subjected to rumors about a man’s infidelity. head coach. And it’s not exactly groundbreaking to say that perhaps the fast-paced scoop culture and the emphasis on being first has gotten a little out of hand. But it bears repeating that the internet, even though some claim otherwise, is real life. These anonymous avatars (usually) represent real people. The stories and rumors circulating within its walls impact real lives, real careers, and real emotional well-being. There is not one or more guilty parts of lives that have been (perhaps even irrevocably) impacted in recent days, but rather a light on the myriad ways in which there is room for improvement in how we distribute, share and consume information.
Perhaps there should be a delineation, to begin with, in how sensitive, actively developing stories like these are covered, as opposed to more mushy information like where someone is traded or how much long to expect a player to be sidelined with injury. : even if, in doing so, one gives up being the king of the Internet that day. Perhaps the Celtics could have been more proactive in protecting their personnel instead of maintaining radio silence until a Friday morning press conference. And for all users, anonymous or otherwise, wielding the double-edged sword of unrestricted access to both consumption and sharing of information and ideas, perhaps it is worth remember that while the thrill of participation and the high dopamine of attention are fleeting, the impact of a tap of a keyboard may not be.
All of us, from the news desk to the front desk to the blue light of an iPhone in a bed to Anywhere, USA, should know better. And with a week showing what the highs and lows of a robust online community can mean for real world implications now in retrospect, the task ahead is to learn from it all and do better.