Bryant Gumbel Burns Down David Stern, Twitter

While the NBA Lockout isn’t necessarily web-related news, the content it produces certainly is. Normally, Twitter has been the primary outlet for all things concerning the lockout, and with good reason. Eliminating the need to go through a local reporter as a spokesperson, while damaging the newspaper industry, gives us better insight into how these players think, for better or for worse.

This time, however, the inspiration for the latest Twitter chatter comes courtesy of Bryant Gumbel’s closing remarks on the most recent episode of HBO Sports. Normally, during this segment, Gumbel waxes poetic on a number of topics, offering his perspective on whatever’s trending in the sports universe. With that in mind, it makes perfect sense that Gumbel would offer his thoughts on the NBA lockout, which he ever so eloquently did.

This time, however, instead of commenting on the overall state of millionaires arguing with billionaires, Gumbel had a particular target in mind: NBA Commissioner David Stern. Not only did Gumbel offer his thoughts on the matter, he absolutely put Stern on nuclear-level blast, equating Stern’s behavior to that of a plantation owner. There’s video of the editorial, but it’s property of HBO, so there’s no telling how long it will last on YouTube’s servers.

Get it while it’s hot:

After watching/hearing that, the only reaction I can come up with has already been done by Craig and Smokey in Friday:

Apparently, the world of Twitter feels the same way, because Bryant Gumbel is a current trend, and everybody who’s responding is mentioning his take down of Stern, with some wondering how in the world can you call multi-million dollar athletes “slaves.”

Do they have a valid point?

Pay attention to the hashtag in the previous embed.

Some, on the other hand, were surprised Gumbel came at Stern as “hard” as he did.

Bonus: today I learned what the H.A.M. acronym means. If you’re curious, check Urban Dictionary.

Again, while this topic may not be the most web business friendly in the world, the web content it produces is certainly ripe for coverage. The way in which we communicate has clearly changed (for the worse or better is up to you), making platforms like Twitter and Facebook some of the more viable businesses out there.

Whatever your thoughts are concerning the NBA Lockout or Bryant Gumbel’s “Come on Pookie, let’s burn this mother****** down” blast towards David Stern, you cannot deny the awesome web content such situations produce.