Kevin Durant and Michael Rapaport Get Into Ugly Social Media Feud: TRAINA THOUGHTS
1. The worst fights are the ones where there is no one to root for.
That’s what we had yesterday when a nasty Twitter scuffle broke out between Nets star Kevin Durant and actor Michael Rapaport.
The participants here are not surprising. Durant loves to fight with people on various social media platforms, and Rapaport is often looking for attention. With personalities this volatile involved, there was no warning before the fight broke out.
Rapaport came firing right out of the gate by sharing a slew of very aggressive and profanity-filled direct messages that Durant had sent him last December.
For the record, I had no idea that anyone considered Kevin Durant "American's sweetheart," but let's move on.
Durant was unfazed and offered this retort.
Releasing DMs is a pretty weak move by Rapaport. Yes, Durant did challenge him to a fight at “10 am at catch steak.” I have no idea what “catch steak” means, but I do know that 10 a.m. seems ridiculously early for a fight. This hardly seems like the type of “threat” that would justify publishing someone’s DMs.
As I said as recently as in Friday's Traina Thoughts, I don’t know why Durant bothers with social media. But he does. And since he does, he should be smart enough to know that you should never DM something you wouldn’t want to be public. And Durant’s choice of words in various DMs could get him in trouble with the Nets or the NBA.
It’s also a terrible look for Durant that he cares what Michael Rapaport thinks.
Apparently, this all started with an interview Durant did with Charles Barkley back in December. The Nets forward was not into the conversation and decided to go with the one-word-answer move.
Rapaport criticized Durant’s attitude on Twitter, Durant responded by calling Rapaport a bad word via DM and then they went back and forth calling each various names. It all came out Tuesday.
We can’t declare a winner here because both guys look ridiculous. We’re calling this Twitter fight a no-contest.
2. A brand-new Sports Illustrated Media Podcast dropped late Tuesday afternoon, and it features an interview with WWE superstar, Edge, who will be in the main event at WrestleMania in a three-way match against Roman Reigns and Daniel Bryan.
The man named Adam Copeland talks about returning to the WWE 10 years after retiring because of a serious neck injury, the importance of comedy in wrestling, his best friend Christian, leaving WWE for AEW, the wrestler he wishes he could've had a match with, whether today's WWE superstars are soft and much more.
3. Starting a game at 10 p.m. ET on a Monday turned out not to be a great move when it came to ratings for the NCAA tournament.
4. If you listened to or watched my podcast last month with Darren Rovell about the trading card craze, you heard me say over and over that I couldn't grasp the fact that there was just one place in the whole country—PSA—that grades cards.
Well, that company can no longer handle the current demand from people who want their cards graded.
5. I don't know how this would play around the rest of the country, but I know baseball fans in New York would revolt if either the Mets or especially the Yankees got rid of their radio broadcasters and used the audio from the TV for their games. This is happening with the Blue Jays this season, and the lead singer of Rush is not happy.
6. We are now up to 21 lawsuits filed against DeShaun Watson. Twenty. One.
7. RANDOM VIDEO OF THE DAY: The first WrestleMania took place on this date in 1985. Sadly, I'm old enough to remember what a big deal this was. Muhammad Ali was the special referee for the main event, for pete's sake!
Be sure to catch up on past editions of Traina Thoughts and check out the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast hosted by Jimmy Traina on Apple, Spotify or Stitcher. You can also follow Jimmy on Twitter and Instagram.
