The OKC Thunder are retooling their roster for the upcoming season. However, within that, there was some drama between players and media.
Sam Presti and the Oklahoma City Thunder are making this summer one for the books. The offseason moves have been like the newspaper montages from a Harry Potter movie. You can see that the Thunder are going all-in in hopes of bringing a championship to Oklahoma City.
In the midst of the Paul George trade, the Thunder and Andre Roberson agreed to terms to keep him in OKC for the next three years. As a result, the Thunder have their defensive anchor which will be responsible for guarding the most elite talents in the league.
However, the focus quickly shifted from Roberson’s contract to his tipping. A man by the name of David Rodriguez tweeted out a receipt of Roberson tipping on an order. As many of you probably have seen, there wasn’t much context to the tweet. The man posted the receipt and called Roberson trash.
Roberson, the subject of roasting from Twitter, Steven Adam, and Enes Kanter, defended himself. He tweeted back the context of the bill. By this time, the back-and-forth had gone viral. Media outlets had taken this story and ran with it. After all, it’s summer and the free agency news was starting to die down some. Roberson, who was probably out celebrating his new contract, was the subject of some harsh ridicule.
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Finally, Roberson had had enough. Taking to Instagram, he posted the receipt and a lengthy message to the Twitter trolls, media, bloggers and fans that witnessed these developments.
https://twitter.com/FlyDre21/status/883431089263583232
Here’s the deal, we as human beings have to stop taking to social media to blast each other the way this man did Roberson. I personally do not care about the tip, the bill or the context surrounding the tweets. What this man did to Roberson was wrong.
Social media allows us as fans and media to get closer to our favorite stars. However, so many of us use it to criticize their every move. Sure we all laugh at Jimmy Kimmel’s mean tweets when it comes on, however, some of the things people are tweeting to celebrities is harsh.
I for one would cringe at the thought of someone posting my personal receipt online for the world to see. While Roberson defended the actions and those speaking ill of his name, this is bigger than Roberson.
This is about people acting like morons. We gravitate to the internet when drama such as this happens. However, it’s wrong. David Rodriguez is wrong the same way that Rob Kardashian was wrong for posting pictures of Black Chyna.
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We can’t continue to use social media to attack and troll celebrities/people every chance we get. It’s horrible behavior. I applaud Roberson for his stance. When we jump on a story and put basketball players personal life in the streets, it makes us prone to sensationalism and not journalism. A story like this should never be viral. It’s not as if Roberson was arrested for beating up the server.
We as basketball fans will always politic players games, strengths, weaknesses, which is a part of the game. Some players do not enjoy that (Lou Williams), however, that’s a part of being a professional athlete. Calling a person trash because he left you a bad tip, and doing it in front of the world is weak.
I realize this isn’t a normal post about stats, numbers, and predictions. However, I think that we as fans and media members need to put ourselves in Roberson’s shoes for a minute. Maybe if we looked past the athlete and the money, we would see a human being and not a story.