NBA's Aaron Gordon Defends Namesake Journalist From Fan's Trolling

Orlando Magic forward Aaron Gordon stood up for a Transit reporter for The Village Voice on Twitter, who got trolled by a basketball fan for having the same name as the growing NBA star.

Gordon's tweet came after the reporter, who shares the player’s name, posted a ridiculous conversation with an angry NBA fan, who kept demanding him to change his name.

"Aaron Gordon" is a fairly common name and hence there was a more than good chance that two Twitter users would share the name. It was, however, a coincidence that two people with that name had verified Twitter accounts. While most NBA fans did not mind this tiny inconvenience, one particular fan — @Money_Buckets23 — could not tolerate the fact that someone else shared the same name as the fan's idol.

The upset fan messaged Gordon, the reporter, urging him to change his Twitter name, since it clashed with the famous athlete’s name. The fan also blamed Gordon for deliberately matching his Twitter username with that of the NBA player in order to steal views, which belong to the more famous namesake.

At this Gordon pointed out that "Aaron Gordon" was not only his Twitter username, but also the name that he had been carrying from birth. The incessant fan went on to suggest that if that was the case, then the reporter should apply for a legal name change.

"Let me get this straight: you want me to legally change my name because someone was born several years after me with the same name and later went on to play professional basketball and you can’t fathom there might be multiple people by that name and that upsets you?" Gordon replied, pointing out the obvious incredulous nature of the fan’s demand. Gordon also added that the fact that he was white and the NBA player who goes by the same name as his, is an African-American, should be enough to clear the apparent confusion.

The relentless persuasion of the fan did not end there. Even as the reporter explained simple math to the Twitter troll — the fact that he was born six years before the athlete came into the world and that NBA player Gordon was 15 years old when the lesser known Gordon created his Twitter account — the fan kept insisting that Gordon did not deserve the views that he was getting simply on the basis of having the same name as a famous player.

"You haven’t earned the views. Don’t be fake news," the fan insisted. However, the conversation ended on a humorous note. After the reporter had posted screenshots of the conversation on his Twitter page and they had gone viral, he asked the fan once again if he had done enough to earn the views. The fan agreed that he had, adding that they had earned the views working as a team, not unlike basketball, indicating that the prolonged persuasion from the fan’s part might have been a conscious effort to create viral content on social media.