What do we know about the NBA’s investigation of referee Eric Lewis and his Twitter burner account?
In recent days, there have been multiple critiques of the veteran NBA referee, but now it seems the league has taken the decision to investigate him.
With the league now set to take a closer look at the long time official, it could well be that the NBA has yet another Twitter related scandal to deal with. The question that remains, what will come of the probe and how will it affect the image of referee impartiality going forward?
NBA to investigate referee Eric Lewis
According to reports, the NBA has initiated an official review after allegations emerged on Twitter concerning a burner account that is believed to belong to veteran official, Eric Lewis. The account in question, which has since been deleted, is known to have defended Lewis on multiple occasions following widespread backlash from several users on the social media platform. Indeed, the account was in fact highlighted by Twitter users, who in turn shared screenshots of the various responses which came from it.
A long-standing referee in the NBA, Lewis has been officiating in the league for almost two decades and during that time has refereed countless playoff games, including two NBA Finals in recent times. Indeed, since beginning his career in the league, Lewis has handled 1,098 regular-season games across 18 seasons. In addition, he has also refereed 82 playoff games, including six NBA Finals games. The last time he oversaw any Finals games was in 2021 when he whistled a pair of games between the Milwaukee Bucks and the Phoenix Suns. Prior to that he was responsible for another two games in the 2020 series, when the Lakers squared off with the Heat.
The NBA has been burned by a Twitter account before
It’s worth noting, that as mentioned before this isn’t the first time the league has had an issue with a burner account on Twitter and subsequently launched an investigation into it. You may recall that back in 2018 Philadelphia 76ers executive, Bryan Colangelo, resigned from the team after a probe into multiple accounts that were connected to him, determined that he had disclosed private information about the team. Indeed, the accounts went as far as to offer critique of players on the roster, as well as members of the press. While the league has offered no official update on Lewis’ situation, it’s understood that it will do so once the invesitgation has been completed.