Knicks star claims his Twitter account was hacked—and uses emoji as evidence
Normally, this would be a non-story. But given how awesome young Kristaps Porzingis is at basketball, and given that he's reportedly unhappy with the acutely dysfunctional New York Knicks?
Oh, now it's definitely a story -- especially after Porzingis went with the oldest excuse in the book.
Porzingis just finished his second NBA season. Only 21 years old, he's seen as one of the league's brightest young stars. But his team, the New York Knicks, is a dumpster fire from the franchise owner on down. Porzingis reportedly skipped his end-of-season meetings with management as a protest of sorts against how poorly the Knicks are run. A handful of other NBA teams, smelling blood in the water, reportedly inquired about trading for Porzingis after this bit of drama leaked.
So that's why a quickly deleted post to Porzingis' Twitter account -- the name of another NBA team, cryptically accompanied by three smiley faces -- caused so much drama this weekend.
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The basketball world took this not exactly in stride, seizing on the tweet with a reaction something along the lines of: OMG WHAT!? PORZINGIS TO THE CLIPPERS??? DID HE MEAN TO TWEET THAT? WAS IT SUPPOSED TO BE A DIRECT MESSAGE? PORZINGIS TO THE CLIPPERS?!
Porzingis tried to stamp down the furor by claiming he was "hacked" -- which is officially the oldest excuse in the athlete's social media handbook.
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He even doubled down by showing his emoji keyboard in hopes of proving he does not even use the basic-ass smiley face included in that Clippers tweet.
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Meanwhile, the young Latvian's use of "B" here shows that his transition to bona fide New Yorker is complete -- whether or not he'll actually be a Knick for that much longer.
Sam Laird is Mashable's Senior Sports Reporter. He covers the wide, weird world of sports from all angles -- as well as occasional other topics -- from Mashable's San Francisco bureau. Before joining Mashable in November 2011, his freelance work appeared in publications including the New York Times, New York Times Magazine, Slam, and East Bay Express. Sam is a graduate of UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz, and basketball and burritos take up most of his spare time. Follow him on Twitter @samcmlaird.
