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Just how wild has the NBA offseason been thus far? Enough that JJ Redick had to get back on social media by creating a burner account just to keep up with all the moves and rumors that were floating around out there.
According to Redick, in order be “in the know” of all the reports of where players would sign, which stars could be traded and what teams were doing to pitch guys, the 13-year vet decided that he would make a fake account, as he hadn’t been on Twitter for over a year, and didn’t want to draw the attention of people to follow him had he reactivated his original account. Here’s what the sharpshooter had to say on his most recent podcast about why the burner Twitter account happened.
“I have something to admit,” Redick said on his podcast. “June 29, I was talking with my buddy Adam Glessner, who works for the Spurs. We go back to my second year in the NBA when he worked for the Magic. He was like, ‘Yo, how are you going to get notifications? Like how are you going to be up to date on free agency?’ So I was like, ‘I think I should just create a burner account.’
“So I used some random Gmail account that I don’t really use that I think I used to have a Spotify account. I can’t remember why I used it. But anyways, used a Gmail account and set up just an egg (avatar) and I followed five people. Woj, Chris Haynes, Ramona (Shelburne), Shams (Charania). the news breakers.”
I mean, if you’re going to create a burner account to be in the know of all NBA moves, those five reporters are the ones to follow, so at least JJ Redick knows what he’s doing on social media. Still, it’s pretty funny that the veteran couldn’t just use some of his intel with players or teams to get the truth, but, like fans, needed social media to be updated with all the craziness.
Redick, who signed a two-year, $26.5 million deal with the New Orleans Pelicans this summer, may have also just been seeing what the market was for him while a free agent. And, while Redick probably isn’t using his Twitter burner account to troll fans or reply to hate — like a certain Kevin Durant got busted doing — who knows if he’s still active or not? After all, we’ve seen NBA players do dumb stuff on social media before.