NBA Social Rankings: Who Won The Week?
Welcome back to The Crossover’s weekly social media power rankings, where we determine who won the week off the court. This week, in honor J.R. Smith’s deleted “Cavs in 7” tweet, we thought it would be a good idea to reflect on 10 times NBA players claimed their Twitter accounts were hacked. Spoiler: There are a lot of Knicks in here.
10. Darius Morris
This was one of the most confusing hackings in NBA history. Morris’s account went on a long rant about how terrible Byron Scott is (complete with a hilarious meme) before the former Laker claimed he was hacked.
Believability: 80%. On the one hand, who would want to hack Darius Morris? On the other, why would a guy like that want to burn bridges?
9. Ray Allen (the second time)
This comes in at No. 9 because it wasn’t nearly as good as his first hacking incident, but it’s still sort of funny how he tried to cover it up. Allen posted a nice clap-back at Rajon Rondo on his verified Facebook page after the ’08 Celtics left him out of a TV hit on TNT. His publicist then said he was hacked. Really?
Believability: 5%. This was his VERIFIED Facebook page, you can only verify a page by providing personal information like your address and phone number. I don’t care that Facebook unverified the page, they must have been in on the cover up. No shot he was hacked.
8. Jordan Clarkson
Clarkson’s account yelled ‘f--- you’ at Kobe Bryant and said he was better than D’Angelo Russell, giving NBA Twitter some entertainment on a slow September night.
Believability: 100%. The hacker revealed themselves for follows.
7. J.R. Smith
As far as J.R. Smith tweets go, this was pretty lame. He usually owns up to his gaffes (tweeting a butt, getting caught asking a woman over DM if she was “trying to get the pipe”) but this time he didn’t. Why? Because he’s got kids and he didn’t want to get fined.
Believability: 10%. There is a slim, slim chance that J.R.’s claim that he was in the shower matches up, but this all seems too odd for a hacking. Why would a hacker choose this to tweet, when they could tweet anything they wanted? J.R. definitely just forgot there was a rule against tweeting that close to the end of the game, someone advised him to take it down, and he did.
6. Kristaps Porzingis
The Knicks’ budding star simply tweeted “L.A. Clippers” with a smiley face in the midst of a rough patch that he went through with the team, but claimed he was hacked and followed with a good tweet:
Believability: 70%. He’s got a fantastic defense, but it still seems like it could have been meant for DM.
5. Kurt Rambis
The Knicks assistant coach was caught liking some porn on Twitter, which has happened to others before (MLB’s Pablo Sandoval!), because not everyone thinks their likes are public. Well, they are, and in order to cover-up the incident, the team said Rambis was hacked. It was so, so lame and so, so hard to believe.
Believability: 40%. The only thing that makes me believe Rambis may have been hacked is the fact that he didn’t even really use his Twitter account at the time, and the photo he liked appeared to be spam. Then again, maybe he just lacks common sense that much.
4. Joel Embiid
I don’t know about you, but this was the moment that told me Embiid would be a social media star. He tweeted out “I’m a Laker” the night before the draft, and then deleted it and blamed it on a friend:
Believability: 20%. Embiid definitely just got bored.
3. Ray Allen (the first time)
This was one of the most memorable NBA player hackings since the advent of Twitter. Allen seemed to be caught sending a dirty DM out into the public, causing quite the uproar online. He then went all-out with his hacking excuse, changing his handle and claiming that he would change his password.
Believability: 15%. This was definitely supposed to be a DM and you know it.
2. D’Angelo Russell
By now you know the story—Nick Young was caught on tape saying he cheated on his girlfriend Iggy Azalea in a video taken by Russell. The Lakers rookie then said his Snapchat was hacked, even though the video was, like, 40 seconds long.
Believability: 0%. The hacking defense doesn’t even make sense, because Snapchats are 12 seconds long. Did the hacker hack Russell’s iCloud? He certainly didn’t hack his Snapchat.
1. Draymond Green
Ah, yes, maybe the biggest calamity in the NBA’s Twitter/Snapchat era. Draymond Green Snapchatted a photo of his Johnson, and later said someone hacked him. Yeahhhhh right.
Believability: 0%. He later admitted he sent it to his story by accident. Gotta be careful.
