For NBA Twitter, the Olympics Are a Delicate Dance Between Being a Hater and a Fan

Jezebel spoke with iconic citizens of NBA Twitter about the sport of being a hater during the Olympics and whether it feels unpatriotic to do so. “Haters are the apex scavengers of the internet,” one user said. “We always find a way.”

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For NBA Twitter, the Olympics Are a Delicate Dance Between Being a Hater and a Fan

Twitter user “r/BillSimmons Podcast” (r/BS), host of a podcast of the same name, is dedicated to the craft of hating on popular sports commentator Bill Simmons’ eccentric takes—particularly, Simmons’ adoration for the Boston Celtics and Celtics star Jayson Tatum. r/BS, who remains anonymous to his cult following, described to me his hypothetical worst-case scenario as Team USA’s star-studded Olympic men’s basketball team chases gold: “If Team USA is down two points in the championship game and Tatum takes a three at the buzzer,” he says he isn’t sure whether he’d like to see the ball go in or bounce off the rim. “Only then, when the ball is in the air, would I really know.”

r/BS’s nightmare hypothetical is, in some ways, a dramatized snapshot of what my NBA Twitter-heavy social feed looks like six days into the 2024 Paris Olympics, as elite, truly tireless haters find themselves both energized and more than a little conflicted. After all, they’re being forced to root for their least favorite players—in some cases, players who have ruined their lives, robbed their teams of championships, perhaps robbed them of their will to live—if they want to watch Team USA win gold. It’s often said our social media algorithms are a composite of our innermost selves, a muddied-up amalgamation of the id, ego, and superego—if that’s true, my id, ego, and superego are all, apparently, haters. Interspersed with tweets about the ongoing political circus and a world literally and metaphorically on fire, my Twitter feed is overrun with Americans hating on players on their own team.

The most popular victims seem to be Tatum, the subject of particular ire for coasting to a championship with a stacked team; Philadelphia 76ers super-star Joel Embiid, for being far too handsome and lovable (or, I guess if you were to ask the average NBA Twitter user, for being a “loser” who falls short time and again in the playoffs); and the Indiana Pacers’ Tyrese Haliburton, who seems like a perfectly swell guy, but is currently being mocked for not playing much and ostensibly being Team USA’s weakest link. I’ve been seeing their faces on my Twitter feed more than I see my own family, and it’s all because Americans on Twitter are absolutely going in on these Team USA stars. Determined to mine the complex psychology behind being a disciplined NBA Twitter hater, all while watching the literal Olympics, I sought expert input.

“Haters are the apex scavengers of the internet. We always find a way,” Sam Sheehan, co-host of the You Know Ball podcast and a pioneering hater in the NBA Twitter community, tells Jezebel. The results, the lineups, the realities of the game—all of it is “immaterial.” It’s “always about pushing your hateful agenda.” Hating is a “constant, hating is eternal, hating is a state of being—a true hater, regardless of results, can still get the hate off, with imagination and dedication.”

r/BS, for example, holds a deep admiration for the NBA legends on the team like LeBron James, Steph Curry, and Kevin Durant—all likely playing their last Olympics—and he’d love to watch them win. But he’d also love to listen to his least favorite sports commentator have an absolute meltdown over Tatum playing badly or costing the team a game. “I hope I don’t have to contend with that hypothetical,” r/BS said, still pondering the idea of Tatum taking a three with Team USA’s Olympic fate on the line.

His Twitter account is dedicated to memes poking fun at both the Celtics and Simmons, especially when the Ringer podcaster’s predictions don’t pan out. When Tatum didn’t play in Sunday’s game against Serbia, r/BS joined the rest of NBA Twitter in something of a field day mocking the Celtics All-Star. The most recurring gag was that, since he wasn’t coming off the bench, he ought to fetch Gatorade for his Team USA teammates like, say, Derrick White, who’s more of a supporting cast member on Tatum’s Celtics, but has been excelling during the Olympics. “They gave Tatum courtside seats that’s nice,” one user tweeted on Sunday. Other memes included “highlight reels” for Tatum, showing him cheering or high-fiving his teammates from the bench. Another viral post congratulated him for breaking a record for most Gatorades handed to his teammates; one listed his stats as “0 Minutes, 18 Gatorade Assists, 12 Towels Passed, 10 Frowns” from the bench. 

On Wednesday afternoon, as Team USA played South Sudan, one Twitter user observed, “Y’all would rather hate on Embiid and Tatum than root for your country and it’s sad.”

Like the many other passionate haters at the heart of the NBA Twitter community, r/BS has found himself in a bit of a bind during the Olympics: Is hating on their least favorite players now unpatriotic??

Sheehan, at least, doesn’t see patriotism and being a hater as mutually exclusive. “There’s something I call ‘symbiotic hating,” he says, wherein the hate you levy at one player can simultaneously lift up your favorite players. “Let’s say you’re a LeBron fan—Tatum plays no minutes on Sunday because LeBron is playing his position, you can hate on Tatum and also say, ‘That’s just how good LeBron is.’” You can also “build around the player you hate on the team, so that you can cheer for the team to win, and when they do, you can say, ‘Look how well we did despite so-and-so.” There’s a political parallel to this, Sheehan says—given J.D. Vance’s astoundingly low approval ratings and constant public humiliations, Trump supporters who dislike him could “point and say, ‘Look how well we’re doing, despite J.D. Vance.”

Again, Tatum, Embiid, and Haliburton have so far been subjected to the highest volume of internet trolling since the start of the Olympics—Tatum and Haliburton didn’t play on Sunday, then played but contributed little against South Sudan on Wednesday. Embiid struggled in Sunday’s game and didn’t play at all on Wednesday. NBA Twitter has been rife with clips of Tatum and Embiid’s worst plays, or clips of water boys and cleaning crews in action captioned, “Tyrese Haliburton highlight reel 🔥.” After Curry played particularly poorly against South Sudan, an account called Hater Central tweeted his stats—“3 points, 1-9 FG, 0-6 3PT”—and added, “ASSPIRATIONAL 🥹🥹🥹.”

As one of the most ardent Embiid lovers on this damned website, I’d like to think I’ve been taking his persecution in stride this Olympic run. Sure, I’ve seen posts mocking Embiid with a photo of him looking bitter on the bench, but all it takes is a little spin—as a bench-warmer, Embiid “[led] us to the win with his effortless charm and incredible vibes” and “there is no one i’d rather have hand me some gatorade,” for instance, and I feel better. And as something of a hater myself, who just so happens to love everyone on this team, there are still opportunities—specifically, opportunities to unleash hate on fellow NBA Twitter users.

Sheehan, himself a passionate Celtics fan, points to the legions of Tatum haters on NBA Twitter as an example of excelling in the field (of hating). This summer, Tatum won his first championship, which you’d think would have silenced the haters. It didn’t. “I have to respect the craftsmanship that’s going on. They’re revolutionizing the game—this should be a total, Stalingrad-level defeat for them,” he said. “Yet the Tatum haters got in the gym, they stayed focused, they came up with this running joke that he’s boring, he steals other champions’ celebrations, he ‘doesn’t have aura,’ they spun it—that is the real soul of a hater.” 

As someone who’s “been meme-ing since 2016,” r/BS told me that like all of the Olympians trying to beat personal records, he’s similarly trying to take his game to the next level in the Olympics of hating. “I just try to make sure I add in some creativity,” he said. There’s a “really energized, huge online community that loves to revel in the downfalls” of Simmons and the Celtics; they’re true patriots, and he’s determined not to disappoint them. Like an Olympic sprinter, he “[races] to fire off memes and [Reddit] comments when one of Bill’s takes backfires spectacularly,” or if one of Simmons’ beloved Celtics players has a particularly bad game. 

As Team USA continues their Olympic run, next playing Puerto Rico on Saturday, r/BS predicts “there will be a lot more about Tatum given he’s so polarizing,” explaining that the NBA Twitter community has a real aversion to the Celtics star not because he’s ever done anything particularly offensive (or offensive at all, really) but because “they feel he’s being pushed by NBA media, like Simmons, as a better player than he actually is.” Meanwhile, Sheehan predicts that moving forward, “hater agendas are going to wither or thrive based on the whims of [Team USA head coach] Steve Kerr, who’s kind of the puppet master behind all of this,” as Kerr decides who’s going to start and who’s not going to play. The hate is going to be “up and down based on these lineups,” Sheehan explained, but “true haters are going to adapt on the fly and be able to get their agendas off—it’s going to be a real test, when there’s an ever-changing environment.”

The hater community thrives to the great extent that it does on NBA Twitter, Sheehan says, because basketball “is so much more human than other sports, you’re so close up, you really see their faces and get to know them, the emotions are that much more raw.” And “the opposite of love isn’t hate,” he stressed—many NBA Twitter users grudgingly, deeply respect the players they hate on, who have often crushed their hopes and dreams. This is true—Curry and the Warriors made me cry at least once a year in the 2010s whenever they eliminated my beloved James Harden and, at the time, his Houston Rockets; but at the core of my hatred for that team was a deep, unwavering admiration. As former Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey put it almost every year of that era, “You come at the king, you best not miss. Congratulations warriors.”

And, in a similar vein, hating on Team USA players is, in its own way, an act of patriotism: “Freedom of speech, this core piece of American democracy, is the right to be a hater,” Sheehan said. God bless. 

 
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