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The day may have ended with Jason Thompson boasting the best numbers of all - 20 points and 20 rebounds in a win over Golden State - but it began with him being jealous of Jon Brockman's numbers.
He wasn't alone, as a chorus of three that also included Donte' Greene and Sean May was jealous of the exploding number of Twitter followers Brockman was gaining. The joke that he gained some 3,000 followers during the timespan of the morning shoot-a-round wasn't that far off, as indicated by the ridiculous disparity between him and his teammates. At last count when this post was being written, it was Brockman with 60,485 followers on his page; , May with 4,605 on his page , Thompson with 6,612 on his page and Greene with 7,892 followers on his page.
It turns out Brockman wasn't alone, as the NBA had recommended two Kings player to Twitter to be mentioned on their 'suggested users' page. The other was Francisco Garcia, who is up to 63,165 and officially leading the team on his page. Nonetheless, this whole Twitter battle - which, yes, is so incredibly vain in many cases but mostly harmless fun here - inspired me to ask Brockman about his recent popularity.
But since I missed him in the locker room, we caught up after myself and Jason Jones interrupted he and May's post-game workout at the team's practice facility to get his thoughts. Brockman, who is incredibly beloved up in Washington and surely has the backing of the Huskies Nation, took the humble route when addressing his newfound status.
"I don't know why 60,000 people care about what a white kid from Snohomish, Washington is doing," he said while popping his head out of the back door for a tongue-in-cheek chat. "I'd like to thank the fans. We did this together."
Asked about his teammates' shameless requests to pilfer some of his followers, Brockman was ever so charitable. It hadn't stopped there, as his former University of Washington teammate Nate Robinson was apparently feeling jealous as well since Brockman has almost twice as many folks on his site as Nate the Great.
"My friends can be their friends, but ultimately it's up to them," he said.
For those unfamiliar with this platform, none of these followings compare to the NBA leader of Twitterland, Shaquille O'Neal. The Big Twiesel has more than 2.4 million lemmings on his list. But getting back to Brockman, it wasn't the first time he has had some fun with Twitter.
During his senior season, a rival Washington State player had been crank calling Brockman's cell phone incessantly but forgot to block the number. After Washington downed Washington State - with Brockman tallying seven points and 18 rebounds - he shared the player's cell phone number with his followers and implored them to call and gloat about the win. - Sam Amick
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