Did Elton Brand read the art of the deal? He hopefully landed the missing piece in Jimmy Butler, kept Fultz AND unloaded the Bayless contract? Not bad at all. Of course it will be sad to see two process era Sixers on the move in Dario and Roco, but upgrades require paying up.
While the acquisition of Butler is obviously the big story, unloading the Bayless contract truly was an added bonus. The veteran guard signed a three-year deal worth $27 million with the Sixers back in July of 2016 in hopes that he would provide much needed scoring. The results were abysmal, to put it mildly. His first season with the Sixers was unfortunately derailed by a wrist injury that saw him appear in just three games. By the time he was healthy, the signing of JJ Redick and the arrival of Ben Simmons had pushed him further and further down in the pecking order. Come season’s end, he was struggling to even find garbage time minutes and hasn’t played at all this year.
His struggles lead to him becoming a popular target to make fun of, so the odds are that he probably hasn’t loved his time in Philly. But do you know what he does love? The New York Times.
When I tell you he loves it, I truly mean that. Take a peek at his Twitter feed and all you will find is New York Times articles dating back months.
Opinion | The Newest Jim Crow – The New York Times https://t.co/D0Xk1QRfyX
— Jerryd Bayless (@jerrydbayless) November 9, 2018
DeSantis Warns Florida Not to ‘Monkey This Up,’ and Many Hear a Racist Dog Whistle via @NYTimes https://t.co/N91HlwQSRs
— Jerryd Bayless (@jerrydbayless) August 29, 2018
https://twitter.com/jerrydbayless/status/1019035023322705920
For the most part, Bayless doesn’t seem particularly active on Twitter. He has 786 tweets since he joined in 2012, almost all of them links to or retweets of articles. The New York Times is the clear favorite, seemingly making up a good 75% of them. Occasionally he will work in another news site, but ultimately, NYT is the go to.
At the same time, Bayless seems to have beef with the New Yorker. He took issue with an editorial about Kanye’s wild Oval Office meeting (one of my favorite episodes of Trump: the series) and gave it the Ryan Reynolds GIF treatment.
— Jerryd Bayless (@jerrydbayless) October 12, 2018
Jerryd Bayless clearly has a dog in the New York based publication fight, and that dog is the New York Times. Sadly though, his efforts to push the times have minimal effect. The typical Bayless tweet gets anywhere from 3-10 likes and retweets seem to come around maybe once or twice a year. Minnesota is probably only going to gain a subscriber or two due to the shilling efforts of Bayless; poor results if you ask me.
When looking for someone to push articles on the internet, maybe get some of those Russian bots instead of Jerryd Bayless.