Colangelo controversy touches on Union, Wade

The NBA fandom went abuzz with chatter Tuesday night — but not because of either Game 7 in the just-concluded conference finals. The Ringer’s Ben Detrick published a story about Philadelphia 76ers president of basketball operations Bryan Colangelo using “burner” Twitter accounts to criticize his own coach and Sixers players.

And one of the Twitter accounts lambasted Heat player Dwyane Wade and his wife, the actress Gabrielle Union.

The Twitter account “Eric Jr.” @AlVic40117560 — which Colangelo denied any knowledge of in response to Detrick’s reporting — attacked Union and Wade for “being rude nasty to a little kid fan.” The following is an excerpt from Detrick’s story.

In two responses to a February 2017 tweet from actress Gabrielle Union, who pointed out that Tom Brady didn’t visit the White House when Barack Obama was president, Eric jr went on the attack. “I sat NEXT to you and [Dwyane Wade] at Beijing Olympics and saw you both being rude nasty to little kid fan,” the account said. “Had to eat yr pizza. … You showed no respect to this little kid, who are you to stand on high grounds? Never looked at DW the same after that.” During the 2008 Olympics, Jerry Colangelo, then the managing director of the U.S. men’s national basketball team, was in Beijing.

We were unable to confirm that Bryan Colangelo was in a restaurant with Wade and Union during the Beijing Olympics; after publication on Tuesday night, we were alerted to a mention of Colangelo in attendance at the Games in the book Return of the Gold by Dan Bickley.

Wade responded to the story, saying that Union was not at the 2008 Olympics.

Union responded with two tweets, one backing up Wade’s assertion that she wasn’t at the 2008 Olympics and another one highlighting that the “Eric jr” Twitter user made up a story about disrespecting a kid to distract from Union’s point — which asked why Martellus Bennet’s decision to skip the White House visit was wrong, when no one made a peep about Tom Brady missing the visit during President Barack Obama’s term.