Golden State Warriors: Did Kevin Durant get caught trying to tweet about himself?

The Golden State Warriors’ superstar Kevin Durant seemed to slip up on Twitter, posting tweets that weren’t intended to be sent from his account.

Kevin Durant has been tweeting a lot this offseason. He deserves it. He has every right to clap back at the haters.

His decision to join the Golden State Warriors surpassed LeBron James’ 2010 decision as the most controversial move in league history. For a year, he endured the backlash. Fans and media came after him hard.

More from Blue Man Hoop

• 3x champion may come to regret forgoing Golden State Warriors reunion
• Golden State Warriors: History shows USA may need Stephen Curry for more than the Olympics
• 7 players Golden State Warriors might replace Klay Thompson with by the trade deadline
• Golden State Warriors villain pours on more pain to end USA’s World Cup
• Golden State Warriors: Stephen Curry continues philanthropic efforts off the court

Last June, he won his first title after outdueling LeBron James. The series was quick, largely because of Durant’s otherworldly performances. He won the championship and the Finals MVP award. Basically, he’s earned his right to talk his mess.

Durant has been responding to trolls regularly. He’s engaged in debates about basketball, especially about his game. He’s responded to countless memes about his decision and role in Golden State.

Last night, Durant sent out some particularly strange tweets in response to some tweets that were sent to him. Twitter user @harrisonmc15 got some screenshots before the tweets were deleted.

Yes, that is Kevin Durant’s official Twitter account talking about Kevin Durant in the third person. Even worse, it’s talking about the superstar basketball player as if…well, as if that isn’t him. He’s giving his thoughts on his own decision. Weird, right?

At first, I was skeptical. After all, the user that tweeted that picture has the Oklahoma City Thunder’s official team handle in his bio and Russell Westbrook as his header. With the way the Internet likes to make fun of him, it’s hard to know if that was real or a convincing fabrication. But it looks like other users also captured screenshots or corroborated the veracity of those images.

On the surface, it looks like Durant has a fake account that he uses to argue with others about himself. He’s not only providing insight, he’s defending Durant. He’s talking about why it didn’t work out in OKC because of the roster and head coach Billy Donovan. Interestingly enough, he didn’t include Westbrook as a reason why he couldn’t win with the Thunder.

Now, if that is the case, it’s pretty sad. It’s rare, but not unprecedented if you consider Skip Bayless’s comment on his own Facebook post about loving his new FS1 show. There might be other athletes out there who do the same.

Still, I don’t think that’s the case. If we rule out that it’s fake and that he’s doing it himself, then what? Well, it might have been his account, but it wasn’t him.

Athletes don’t run their own social media accounts, at least not exclusively. There are probably a few other people that have access to his Twitter account. When it’s the account replying to fans, it’s him. When it’s things like ads or other promotional and marketing content, then that’s his team.

It’s very easy to accidentally tweet from another account if you’re logged into multiple accounts at once. I sometimes do it on the app and slipping up while using Tweetdeck is a regular occurrence. I occasionally mix up replies for my personal account with @BlueManHoop‘s and vice versa.

Now, the more likely scenario is that one of Durant’s team members is probably signed into @KDTrey5 and his or her personal account as well. They wanted to tweet in defense of the Finals MVP from their own account, offering some perspective on something they may, in fact, have inside knowledge of. That person just messed it up by accident.

Unfortunately, this is the Internet and context and critical thinking often take a backseat to hyperbole, overreaction, and jokes. Twitter will jump at any time to roast Durant. On the surface, without giving it much thought, it’s easy to conclude that this is an embarrassing moment for Durant where he was caught up in something that should be beneath him.

I’d say that it was probably a social media manager that made a mistake. Mistakes happen, but when you’re dealing with something so sensitive, you can’t afford to let them get past you. It could very well cost that person their job.

Next: Top 25 Warriors of All-Time

It’ll be interesting to see how Durant handles this one in the morning if he does it all. In the immediate aftermath, he just said that he deleted it. It’s anyone’s guess if he’ll offer a more thorough explanation.

Either way, it’s pretty silly. But as much as I’d love to sit here and scroll through my timeline and see Durant owning someone, I’d much rather see him owning someone on the court. We’re under a month, but until that happens, we’re just going to have to get by with Twitter scandals.