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These NBA stars’ old tweets will leave your jaw on the floor

Kevin Durant and Damian Lillard do not want you to see these tweets.

 

Austin Powell

Internet Culture

Posted on Oct 30, 2014   Updated on May 30, 2021, 7:33 am CDT

Ever wonder what it’s really like in an NBA locker room when the cameras aren’t rolling and the players aren’t worrying about their own PR?

Look no further than the early days of Twitter

A bored redditor did some archival digging into the tweets of some of the NBA’s biggest stars, most dated between 2009 and 2011, well before Twitter had become the Internet’s de facto watercooler. And the results are shocking; some of them could even lead to potential fines or suspension—or they would if such egregious mistakes were made again today. 

Got damn this nigga breathe smell like death

— Ty Lawson (@TyLawson3) November 19, 2010

Perhaps most damning is reigning MVP and scoring champion Kevin Durant—the poster child of the league and star of the children’s entertainment thriller Thunderstruck—tossing around gay slurs like the kids in the NBA’s 2011 “Wordplay” ad.  

@LmoeBoogie how thas gay? smell jus like cocoa butter and i kno erybody put on cocao butter b4

— Kevin Durant (@KDTrey5) July 9, 2009

@Ant_Wright shutup fag boi i only went to college for a year and didnt pay attention in class at oak hill lol

— Kevin Durant (@KDTrey5) November 30, 2009

Context is important here. Most of these statements were made well before these players were in the national spotlight—and in some cases, there was no reason to believe there would ever be a national spotlight. That’s not to excuse the language, but I’d like to think that most of these players have become a bit more educated and sensitive over the past few years as gay athletes have finally entered into the national conversation. (Durant was one of the first to salute both Michael Sam and Jason Collins.)

Even still, Portland Trailblazers’ Damian Lillard, last year’s breakout star, is already regreting his quips about LeBron James, made when he was still a junior at Weber State. (He deleted them sometime this morning.) 


 

Here’s a short list of other highlights: 

My personal favorite is Portland Trail Blazers’ board-clearing custodian Thomas Robinson’s baffled response to the weather. (It should be an Insane Clown Posse song.) 

Why the fuck is snowing !!

— thomas robinson (@Trobinson0) November 16, 2009

That’s #realtalk. 

Photo by Keith Allison/Flickr (CC BY SA 2.0)

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*First Published: Oct 30, 2014, 12:53 pm CDT