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The Clippers and their emojis broke Twitter

By Trisity Miller

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It’s been an eventful past 30 days for NBA players and the use of emojis on Twitter. In fact, I shouldn’t even be wasting my time typing out words because emojis are taking over the world one NBA rumors at a time.

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    • First it was DeMarcus Cousins’ “snakes in the grass” emojis after rumors of Kings head coach George Karl trying to trade the superstar center emerged. Now the Clippers are using emojis as metaphor to represent the all-out push by the team to “re-gain” the services of DeAndre Jordan, who is reportedly second-guessing his decision to leave the Clippers for the Dallas Mavericks.

    The Clippers didn’t start this “emoji-off”; it was actually Mavs forward Chandler Parsons who dropped an airplane emoji onto his timeline after news of meet-ups occurring in DeAndre Jordan’s Houston home as the center is reportedly waffling on his decision to leave the Clippers for the Mavs. From there, the Clippers responses to Parsons’ plane tweet were the making  of a classic Twitter happening.

    First came SG J.J. Redick, sporting the car emoji as sign he’s on his way to meet with DJ (Woj of Y! reports Redick stays in Texas in the off-season and drove to Jordan’s place of residence).

    Next came Blake Griffin, Jordan’s best friend on the team, with a trio of emojis: the plane, the car, the boat.

    Then came Chris Paul, sporting a banana boat to match the image of he, Dwyane Wade, Gabrielle Union, and LeBron James on a banana boat while on vacation.

    Then came the straw that effective “broke” the internet, or at least Basketball Twitter: instead of posting an emoji, team veteran Paul Pierce posted a screenshot of the rocket emoji, despite tweeting from an iPhone.

    (My theory is Blake Griffin, a noted jokester, staged this particular tweet. Pierce may be funny but I don’t think he’s THIS funny. Also, the funniest retort to Pierce’s screen-shotted emoji was easily that from Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert.)

    Next up? Clippers assistant coach Mike Woodson with the swimming emoji — hopefully he’s not stranded in any Houston/Dallas waters in an attempt to meet up with the rest of the Clippers.

    And a late entry from unrestricted free agent Austin Rivers, who many believe will re-sign with the team some time this summer.

    From there, the rest of the internet fell in line, tweeting an array of emojis to express whatever emotion was felt at the moment, including an absolute own by the 2014-15 NBA champion Golden State Warriors:

    To put it simply, we’ve never see free agency like this before. The semantics of the period haven’t changed: first comes moratorium (the period we’re in now), then comes the officially signing. But a social network where NBA players are easily accessible has paved the way from some interesting commentary come time for rumors. The Clippers players didn’t need to confirm reports the contingent is — to borrow a word from Woj — converging on Jordan’s location in Houston as the likes of Woj, Marc Stein, Ramona Shelburne and select others have proven more than reliable in situations such as these. But they did, and did it in the best way possible.

    Now imagine if emojis and Twitter existed in the 1990s when Jordan announced his ’93 retirement!

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