SAN FRANCISCO—Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green has officially deactivated his Twitter account.
The San Francisco Examiner’s Jay Mariotti dug-up some interesting bulletin-board material in advance of this week’s highly anticipated NBA Finals.
“I haven’t been on the Internet and haven’t been watching SportsCenter and all that other stuff. Want to check my phone? Twitter’s not on there. I removed myself from there,” he said. “I’m starting to realize I really didn’t need it. I realize there’s more time in the day when you’re not texting and doing Twitter.”
Mariotti, known for his regular television appearances and sports writing acumen, dug all the way back to 2010, when Green, then a star at Michigan State, was merely a fan watching the NBA on television.
The 25-year-old version of Green, who faces Lebron James and The Cavaliers in Wednesday’s Game One matchup, would certainly mince his words more in making public opinions. However, Green the college star didn’t hold back in blasting LeBron over social media.
The first tweet, posted in April 2010, compared Lebron and Kobe Bryant, a tweet in which Green said, “That what separates champions from losers and that’s y bron is a loser.”
In furthering the comparison between James and Bryant, Green tweeted, “That’s y #Lakers is gone get a ring… Best player in the world tryna take a charge… Bron not doing that.”
But the younger Green was far from finished. When James defected from Cleveland to Miami via a televised ESPN ceremony, the Michigan State Star tweeted: “LeBron gay 4 that he know he can’t lead a team to a championship.”
To be fair, Green has no doubt grown considerably from the days when his chief concerns likely centered around making 8 a.m. finals and swiping into the dining hall just before closing. Becoming a well-traveled multi-millionaire and a public figure has a way of making most people grow up in hurry.
The findings present an interesting storyline not only because of the impending Green v. James matchup, but also because of Green’s history of expressing homophobic opinions via social media.
Green once tweeted, “Are all male flight attendants gay??? Cuz we have one and … he gone have to stay out of the first class section in stay in da back.”
On one side of the coin, these tweets can be dismissed as the ramblings of an ignorant and perhaps insecure 20-year-old. On the other, they could be viewed as a serious public relations issue for an athlete that plays in the Mecca of Gay America for a team whose president, Rick Welts, is openly gay.
In 2015, it would be unfair to lambast Green for his college shenanigans. It’s hard to identify deep-seeded prejudice in the mindless Internet musings of a 20-year-old that doubtless is ignorant of how permanent words posted over the internet truly are.
It could be interesting to see if these red flags of homophobia play any part in the Warriors’s contract negations with Green, who is an impending free agent.
If sports history has taught us anything, it’s that smoke will usually be ignored until there is truly fire, that elite talent usually wins-out over red flags.
For when James and the Cavaliers square-off against Green and the Warriors on Wednesday, the social media postings of a 20-year-old boy will be pushed into the deep recesses of the NBA fan’s mind, filed away in a place that is strictly reserved for the doldrums of the offseason to come.
