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NBA declares war on fun: no tweeting, standing
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AP Photo/Frank Franklin II: Ricky avoids Stern's wrath...for now.
Sorry, Paul. Sorry, KG. Sorry, Marc Cuban. I’ll even send my condolences to Charlie Villanueva. David Stern has laid the hammer down just in time for the pre-season games to begin regarding the league’s official rules on social media, plus a little tidbit about, of all things, standing.
The commish informed the league that players, coaches, and other team personnel “involved in the game” will be prohibited from communicating with the outside world during games. What is considered “during a game?” Glad that you asked, as the league has clearly defined that for us. Players may not tweet, or do whatever else they want to do (like Facebook) after the pregame media access period is over (which starts roughly 90 minutes before tip and lasts for about 45 minutes), during halftime, or until the postgame media access begins in the locker room. However, they can share their favorite poetry on their Twitter pages with other literary enthusiasts during the pregame media access period, just in case Marc Stein is wearing something really weird and they just have to blurt it out to the world. And speaking of Marcs, owners are still allowed to tweet during games. So keep the whiny complains about officials coming, Marc!
Just to make matters worse for our height emboldened writers, Stern declared that teams can make up their own rules to further restrict social media usage during practices, meetings and other team events.
So to pile irony upon irony (leagues want their players to be more accessible, and now here we are restricting them when they are out in public…), let’s check some Twitter feeds to get some reactions:
Sports Guy
sportsguy33 Classic DS. Always waits for busy sports time for preseason news splash. RT @STEIN_LINE_HQ: NBA Twitter policy revealed http://bit.ly/exssX4:09 PM Sep 30th from UberTwitter
OK, not much from the Sports Guy other than praise for his fave commish.
Shaq
THE_REAL_SHAQ Lagos is the best italian restaraunt in cleveland , wow, lasagna is off da chain, 2221 professor ave come c me get 2 tickets to da 1st gameabout 22 hours ago from TwitterBerry
Shaq clearly has better things on his mind.
Marc Stein
STEIN_LINE_HQ Other big rule change that teams were informed of today pertains to the league's attempts to cut down on players standing while on the benchabout 23 hours ago from TweetDeck
STEIN_LINE_HQ NBA says it's responding to "numerous complaints that the NBA and its teams received from fans during last season" about players standingabout 23 hours ago from TweetDeck
Ah, yes, standing. Let’s not forget how that little act of human freedom has become a nuisance for the league as well. You know when NBA (and college, and high school) benches stand during close games? There’s a minute left, teams are tied, and the bench players are so amped that they stand and practically start pacing along the sideline to release some energy? Well, apparently that’s not going to be allowed anymore.
Players are being ordered to stay seated during games, except when they feel the need to "spontaneously react to a notable play [and] immediately sitting down on the bench afterward" or "to approach the scorer's table to report into the game." So if Pierce hits a potential game winning three, feel free to jump up and down, Scal and J.R. Giddens. But make sure you get right back into your seats.
My main question regarding that rule is, how long do players have to get back into their seats? Five seconds? Ten? What if someone accidentally takes your seat and you have to go to the end of the bench? Do you get in trouble? And what is the result? A tech? A fine? Nothing like trying to make the games less exciting.
These are very interesting rule changes by the league, and they are mostly understandable (players should be focusing on the game or practice, not tweeting, and the few rows blocked by standing players did pay a pretty penny for those seats), but for the rest of us, the league just took a minor hit in the entertainment category. From my perspective, let the players tweet. Let the coaches tweet, I don’t care. As long as Shaq doesn’t tweet something vulgar or completely incomprehensible during a timeout, let him have fun. If he wants to tweet right before halftime ends that Mike Brown’s halftime speech fired him up (highly unlikely), then he should be able to.
Speaking of twitter, you can follow me (@rawdenm). I haven’t tweeted yet, but since I don’t play in the NBA, I can start tweeting all day every day…the world is mine!
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