Has Kevin Durant been defending himself using fake Twitter accounts?
Kevin Durant has been riding a wave all summer long after capturing his first NBA championship and Finals MVP in June. This time, however, he seems to have flown too close to the sun.
Late Sunday night, screenshots emerged purporting to show since-deleted tweets made by Durant's verified Twitter account - tweets that ripped his former Thunder teammates and coach Billy Donovan.
KD has secret accounts that he uses to defend himself and forgot to switch to them when he was replying to this guy I'm actually speechless pic.twitter.com/9245gnpa3c
— 🐗 1-1 / ✭ 1-1 (@harrisonmc15) September 18, 2017
As the internet is largely still a lawless frontier where wild speculation runs rampant, social media users have been quick to analyze the implications of Durant's cryptic activity.
The most popular hypothesis is that Durant controls multiple social media accounts, which he uses to respond to his critics and reaffirm his positions on current NBA issues. In this case, Durant may have believed he was tweeting using one of his anonymous "secret accounts," when he was actually tweeting from his main account. That would explain the odd third-person phrasing in his tweets.
As was the case when NBA commissioner Adam Silver revealed he had his own secret account, the internet collectively raced to unearth Durant's social media handles. The denizens of NBA Reddit were quick to point out that Instragram user "quiresultan," a private account who's followed by the likes of Draymond Green and Andre Roberson, had been tagged as Durant in a picture posted by Durant's brother, Tony.
so @NBA_Reddit found Kevin Durant's private instagram https://t.co/7MMeNual1u pic.twitter.com/jAdRbxQny2
— Tim Cato (@tim_cato) September 18, 2017
For those keeping score at home, the "quiresultan" account has since been renamed "shanghainoon12345."
More Kevin #Durant drama... first he's accused of making fake accounts to defend himself, and now we've found his private Instagram 👀 pic.twitter.com/Rrg0M0ucf7
— Hoops Nation (@HoopsNation_) September 18, 2017
As of noon Monday, Durant had yet to address the deleted tweets, or the rumors about his secret accounts.
Even though the NBA season is now under a month from tip-off, "Petty Season" continues to chug along at full strength.