The anonymity of the Internet can lead people to be real… jerks. (I’ll go with that on a family site.) And some people don’t need the anonymity.
The Lakers Steve Blake missed a good-look three in the final seconds of Game 2 that would have given the Lakers a win in Oklahoma City. That shot is not why the Lakers lost — they blew a 7 point lead in the final two minutes and Kobe Bryant, Mike Brown and others deserve a share of blame. For some context here, Blake himself isn’t really active on twitter but his wife is.
And after the miss — despite his fantastic Game 7 against Denver and despite basic human decency — threats came pouring in on twitter. ESPNLA.com has the details.After the game, both the Twitter feeds of Blake and his wife, Kristen, were inundated with criticism ranging from curse word-laden rants to threats.
“I hope your family gets murdered,” read one tweet that Kristen Blake re-tweeted along with a single comment: “Wow.”
“It’s pretty disappointing that there are a lot of hateful people out there, but you move on,” Blake said. “I just don’t appreciate it when it’s toward my family. You can come at me all you want but when you say things about my wife and my kids, that makes me upset.”
I’m not sure I really need to say this, but I will — if you threaten a player through twitter (or your media of choice, social or otherwise) after a game, you have issues. Serious issues. This is entertainment people, it’s a diversion. We all feel passionate about it, and there are many serious lessons we can learn through it, but let’s not start to confuse it with anything actually important.
To paraphrase a Bob Costas line, things like these ridiculous threats should not put sports in perspective for you because you shouldn’t lose that perspective in the first place.
