Home

By: Nick Gibson / @euro_adventures

Twitter is a medium with many uses. You might just be a regular person who just wants to share pictures of your cat (which we’re all super interested in, by the way, so keep ’em coming), or an athlete whose Lithuanian club recently fired its coach after one game and now you’re being attacked personally for an assist-less Euroleague debut.

Today, Ty Lawson was not sharing pictures of his cats.

It all started with this post-practice tweet.

Understandably, some of the Zalgiris faithful weren’t stoked that their big offseason signing (rental) was slighting the team’s training session. But first, consider this: perhaps Ty was only suggesting that NBA 2K12 is undervalued as a means for basketball tutelage. If so, it’s an assertion that we should consider and one with which I’m fully on board. (Seriously, I’m unstoppable with Rodrigue Beaubois.)

But folks fired back anyways, and Ty pulled no punches. Nor did he pulls slaps:

When a couple Twitter bros piled on and told Ty do do his job, Ty countered with this:

Good to see Ty’s making friends in Lithuania. Let’s keep it real here for a second (Phil Dunphy voice): Ty’s had an odd week. First he goes up against CSKA Moscow—possibly the best thing smokin’ right now in European basketball—and has a rough outing. Realizing that you’re not going to walk right over the competition can chip away at the old ego. Then, he sees his coach Ilias Zouros fired for losing a game. A single game. Say goodbye to any shred of stability you carried with you on your flight to Kaunas. After all that, attending a practice with an interim coach who doesn’t speak English, according to @LithuaniaBasket, might be enough to put you over the edge.

But maybe Twitter wasn’t your best move, Ty. Skype a friend. Take a walk. Go have lunch with Sonny. The social media vultures will get you every time.

(And yes, that’s exactly what this article is doing right now: vulturing. Bloggers love a good Twitplosion. That sounds dirty.)

Finally, the whole thing settled down:

He hadn’t. He wasn’t.

To his credit, he did re-tweet one particularly derogatory tweet that I’d rather not post here. It was uncalled for, and in bad taste. But hey: this is Twitter, a world where trolls are only outnumbered by Justin Bieber fans. Then he decided to lighten the mood with a little out-loud laughing:

and…

Something we agree on. Let’s hope Mad Vlad Romanov feels the same way.