On Thursday, word broke that the NBA issued a league-wide memo to its teams regarding social media policy and something of a “crackdown” on what individual franchises should be posting. At the time, this was seen by many as a response to a beef between Chandler Parsons and C.J. McCollum that was inadvertently kickstarted by an official team account. Nevertheless, the league wasn’t shy in trying to keep its teams in line.
Just 24 hours later, though, the Atlanta Hawks and Sacramento Kings brilliantly trolled the league with back and forth banter throughout the first half of a game between the two teams. The Kings’ account got things rolling with a tribute to Hawks All-Star power forward Paul Millsap.
https://twitter.com/SacramentoKings/status/830262180012449792
From there, the conversation shifted to Sacramento’s new arena and the top-flight work of Hawks in-arena organist Sir Foster.
https://twitter.com/SacramentoKings/status/830263044248784896
In short order, jersey talk ensued and the Kings even made a reference to “electric” play in honor of Atlanta’s uniform look.
https://twitter.com/SacramentoKings/status/830264137661845504
https://twitter.com/SacramentoKings/status/830267204918587393
During the first half conversation, the Hawks took a sizable lead, but that did not slow Sacramento down in their positive nature.
https://twitter.com/SacramentoKings/status/830267795296235522
After a brief hiatus, the conversation began again in earnest, with more praise for Millsap and even a reference for Boogie Cousins.
Paul Millsap's birthday so far:
4-4
12 points pic.twitter.com/BPsMZ5ZasX— Atlanta Hawks (@ATLHawks) February 11, 2017
1 of 2 guys on the court tonight who has been selected to at least 3 straight All Star games. The other is really good too.
— Atlanta Hawks (@ATLHawks) February 11, 2017
It seems as if the two teams might keep this going throughout the evening, and frankly, everyone should be following along in real time. There is a chance this does not go over particularly well in the NBA league office, but for those of us on the public side of things, it added a great amount of entertainment during the first half of an otherwise anonymous mid-February game.
