Philosopher Carl Jung posited the idea that each of us has a Shadow Self. The Shadow describes those aspects of the personality that we choose to reject and repress. The parts of ourselves that we think society will disapprove of, things we would never say and do in public.
Which brings me to Twitter, the ultimate cesspool. Limitless burner accounts aimed at your head, saying whatever they want, but would never say in RL to your face.
The ultimate expression of the Shadow, perhaps in human history ever even beyond the Greater Twitter, is NBA Twitter. NBA Twitter is not a place you bring kids or people you love.
If NBA Twitter was a place it would be akin to Dave Chappelle’s skit, If The Internet Were A Real Place. It’s gross and nothing is what it appears. No one knows who you are so the Shadow can run amok, unchecked.
At any time you want, you can read the @ mentions of any account on Twitter. Take some time and read some NBA player’s @ mentioned and It is a great way to spend a Friday night.
Action Network scraped and analyzed more than 8.5 million tweets and conducted sentiment analysis using machine learning tools to determine the sentiment in a given tweet with a player mentioned.
Tweets sent were analyzed from first tip of the 2021-22 season, up until September 23 2022 – an entire season and most of the preseason.
- Marcus Smart received the highest share of negative Tweets. 41.03% of all Tweets directed towards him were deemed negative.
- LeBron James was Tweeted at the most. He had more than 704k Tweets mentioning him, with the highest number of negative messages (115,764).
- LeBron was also the target of most positive Tweets. He earned 249,086 positive Tweets throughout this time frame.
- Donovan Mitchell is the ‘least’ abused player in the top 50 in terms of the share of negative Tweets directed at him. He ‘only’ had a 24.32% negative sentiment rate.
- LeBron James, Ja Morant and Ben Simmons received a combined 326,160 negative Tweets. 21% of all negative Tweets reviewed were directed at these three players.
Players With the Highest Percentage of Negative Tweets:
Marcus Smart – 41.03%
Draymond Green – 38.27%
Bam Adebayo – 37.33%
Trae Young – 37.24%
Jimmy Butler – 36.7%
Ben Simmons – 36.63%
Chris Paul – 36.46%
Jaylen Brown – 35.35%
Rudy Gobert – 34.66%
Jayson Tatum – 34.63%
Players With the Highest Total Number of Negative Tweets:
LeBron James – 116,764
Ja Morant – 107,056
Ben Simmons – 102,340
Trae Young – 83,717
Kevin Durant – 80,545
Kyrie Irving – 72,710
James Harden – 72,290
Stephen Curry – 57,025
Chris Paul – 55,634
Jimmy Butler – 55,165
Players With the Lowest Negative Sentiment/Most Loved:
Donovan Mitchell – 24.32%
CJ McCollum – 26.27%
Giannis Antetokounmpo – 26.65%
Kawhi Leonard – 26.77%
Nikola Jokic – 27.19%
Darius Garland – 27.41%
Stephen Curry – 27.45%
Domantis Sabonis – 28.03%
Zion Williamson – 28.30%
Bradley Beal – 28.33%
Is it a shock to see “LeGM” atop this list? Not at all. The guy says anything he can to get attention. Speaking of attention seeking babies, I am shocked not to see Russell Westbrook on this list.
Particularly after this week, where he set the Lakers ALL-TIME franchise record for worst shooting percentage across two games at 14%.
Maybe he doesn’t have Twitter. IDK I can’t imagine his content other than his weird alien-looking face/body in weird suit-jackets with shorts trend I remember him rocking.
8.5 million tweets don’t lie. Neither does the ball – queue Rasheed Wallace.
