Twitter activity centered around 19-year NBA referee Eric Lewis is under official review from the NBA, according to NBA Insider Marc Stein.
The Twitter account @CutliffBlair has been defending Lewis’ decisions as an NBA official, so if it’s not Lewis himself behind the laptop screen, someone out there is his biggest and most loyal fan.
The Twitter user “@PabloEscoburner” posted a thread showing screen recordings of the account’s likes and activity.
See below for all the evidence:
NBA ref Eric Lewis has been outed as having a burner account (@CuttliffBlair). Lmaooo this is a momentous day. The account will surely be deleted soon so for the archives, the entirety of the account’s replies. All involving… yep, Eric Lewis. 😂
(h/t @Mikey_Wyllin) thread 🧵⬇️ pic.twitter.com/6GTvURouOc
— Pablo Escobarner (blue check) (@PabloEscoburner) May 25, 2023
Interestingly, the account was deleted after Pablo Escobarner called the owner of the account out.
Whoever owned the account, it reportedly wasn’t followed by anyone and was created back in 2015.
The account only followed five other accounts: @RefAnalytics, @OfficialNBARefs, @NBA, @NBAOfficial and @MasonWBB.
The last account is the George Mason women’s basketball team that Lewis’ wife, Vanessa Blair-Lewis, coaches.
Some of the Twitter hate that Lewis was copping was from when he was the main official in a game where an obvious foul call on Jayson Tatum was missed. This denied LeBron James the opportunity for a layup that would have won the Lakers the game.
LeBron himself was mad after the game on Jan 28 and told media, “We don’t have room for error. And it’s one of the best games we played all year. For it to fall on somebody else’s judgment, or non-judgment, it’s just ridiculous. It’s ridiculous.”
The ‘Boston fan’ label continued into the year and on April 30, an account tweeted, “Eric Lewis is a die hard Celtics fan,”
The CutliffBlair account replied, “From what credible source?”
His wife Vanessa posted a tweet in January showing herself and her family in Celtics jerseys.
Of course, none of this proves that the account belongs to Lewis or anyone associated with him but it will be interesting to see what the NBA’s official review uncovers.
More to come.