Twitter troll makes up story that Dwight Howard was house hunting in Houston, sends Internet into frenzy
The Dwight Howard free agency situation is getting crazier by the day, and this time it’s not Dwight who is responsible for all the drama.
This week, ESPN’s Chris Broussard reported that there is “little chance” Howard remains with the Los Angeles Lakers. Instead, he says Howard is more likely to sign with the Houston Rockets or Dallas Mavericks. The timing of Broussard’s report coincides with the Lakers putting up billboards asking Dwight to stay in LA. Maybe the Lakers are feeling desperate and know they need to court Howard.
Since the Rockets are being mentioned as a team in whom Howard is interested, one fan decided to have some fun with the whole situation. A self-proclaimed Oklahoma Sooners fan who claims to be a realtor caused a huge frenzy on the ‘net Friday by tweeting that Howard was in Houston house hunting. His tweets have been deleted, but here is what they said according to Black Sports Online:
“Dwight Howard is in Houston looking at houses today.”
“I know this because they made an appt to see one of our houses”
Those tweets no longer appear on the person’s timeline. These new tweets are on his timeline, and they’re a pretty strong indication that the whole story was fabricated:
Tomorrow, I will be showing houses to Elvis and possibly Tupac
— Allen OU (@THEREALALLENOU) June 28, 2013
Then the fan said he did not feel badly for causing the confusion:
@ZachMayer14 don't feel bad, this is hilarious
— Allen OU (@THEREALALLENOU) June 28, 2013
The best response to the whole situation came from LA Times Lakers blogger Eric Pincus, who tweeted this:
Here's a video of Dwight Howard allegedly looking for homes in Houston – the kids playing ball with him are realtors http://t.co/Ngiidvsiiu
— Eric Pincus (@EricPincus) June 28, 2013
The link goes to a video of Dwight playing basketball at UCLA with some kids.
[Related: Dwight Howard will reportedly announce his decision on July 10]
It’s quite possible that Dwight could be in LA while his people look at real estate in Houston for him, so that video does not mean the whole thing isn’t true. But the troll essentially admitting he was toying with everyone does show us it was all a fabrication.
That isn’t the only dramatic fan-driven story about Dwight this week that got deleted.
Blogger Daniel Buerge of Lakers Nation wrote a story in which he cited sources that said Howard was being driven away from the Lakers by the team’s fans.
Dwight Howard calls Laker fans "ungrateful" and "unappreciative." Here's my column; http://t.co/OjUIFfvHJM
— Daniel Buerge (@danielbuergeLA) June 27, 2013
He then inexplicably removed the entire article.
My apologies concerning the Dwight Howard story I posted earlier. It's been taken down.
— Daniel Buerge (@danielbuergeLA) June 27, 2013
Buerge did not respond to a tweet asking why he pulled the story.
Black Sports Online did capture some of what the story said. This is the tone of the article:
In conversations with Howard, the big man reportedly called L.A. fans “the most unappreciative group of people ever,” going on to say that people in Los Angeles are “ungrateful.”
So, according to what’s been said and deleted on the Internet this week, Dwight doesn’t like Lakers fans, and the center was real estate shopping in Houston. One story was fabricated, the other was pulled.
There is plenty of drama surrounding Dwight yet again, but he’s mostly not to blame for the frenzy this time. Howard reportedly will announce his free agent decision on July 10.
