Joerger joins Twitter, thanks fans in first tweet
Kings coach Dave Joerger signed up for a Twitter account (@CoachJoerger) Friday morning and wrote two tweets addressing Sacramento fans.
Just want to say thank you to our Kings fans. So great getting to know many of you. Your loyalty and passion is amazing and humbling.
— Dave Joerger (@CoachJoerger) April 14, 2017
I knew Sacramento had amazing fans but you never truly feel the magnitude of the love between this team and city until you live here.
— Dave Joerger (@CoachJoerger) April 14, 2017
The account has been verified and had acquired more than 1,500 followers by Friday evening.
How does Joerger’s new social media presence stack up against his roster?
Well, he’s got some catching up to do. The 12 Kings with verified Twitter accounts each have 20,000 or more followers. Arron Afflalo, Georgios Papagiannis and Malachi Richardson do not have accounts.
Here is the Kings’ roster – minus those three – with each player’s handle, sorted by follower count as of Friday.
Player | Twitter Handle | Followers |
Rudy Gay | 1.21M | |
Ty Lawson | 480K | |
Willie Caluey-Stein | 191K | |
Tyreke Evans | 182K | |
Ben McLemore | 103K | |
Darren Collison | 101K | |
Buddy Hield | 89K | |
Anthony Tolliver | 37.9K | |
Skal Labissiere | 34.4K | |
Kosta Koufos | 26.0K | |
Langston Galloway | 22.3K | |
Garrett Temple | 20.4K |
Rudy Gay dwarfs his teammates’ follower counts on the social media platform with more than 1.2 million, nearly double that of the team’s official account, which has 667,000. The next closest is Ty Lawson with 480,000.
Gay used Twitter to address fans two days after suffering a season-ending Achilles injury on Jan. 18.
— Rudy Gay (@RudyGay8) January 21, 2017
Since then, he’s posted clips of his workouts and injury rehab.
Work pic.twitter.com/j0bCobN3Qz
— Rudy Gay (@RudyGay8) February 14, 2017
Today's program. Looks like nothing but came a long way pic.twitter.com/yOLs1s6FHk
— Rudy Gay (@RudyGay8) March 1, 2017
#staywoke pic.twitter.com/wgVce1tEO2
— Rudy Gay (@RudyGay8) March 3, 2017
A few Kings have used the platform as a send-off for the recently-ended 2016-17 season.
Thankful for my first year...On to the next one...#Godisgood #SacramentoProud
— Skal Lab (@OneBigHaitian) April 13, 2017
Shout out to the @sacramentokings fans for the great support of the team this year!!! #sacramentoproud #kings #bestfansinthenba pic.twitter.com/t2Lk9JKwiP
— Kosta Koufos (@kostakoufos) April 14, 2017
Blessed to have finished my 7th year in this league. Shoutout to the best fan base in the NBA… https://t.co/7dq85NiOqa
— Garrett Temple (@GTemp14) April 14, 2017
How Joerger will use Twitter, and whether he’ll be as prolific a user as Cauley-Stein (more than 12,000 tweets since 2011) or Temple (nearly 15,000 since 2009) remains to be seen.
This story was originally published April 14, 2017 at 6:02 PM with the headline "Joerger joins Twitter, thanks fans in first tweet."