peter vecsey-lebron james-enes kanter

In the first quarter of the Knicks-Cavaliers game Monday night, New York rookie Frank Ntilikina shoved LeBron James, then Enes Kanter rushed over to get into James’ face, as the Madison Square Garden crowd cheered.

And while NBA Twitter stirred excitedly over the fracas, NBA columnist Peter Vecsey, previously of the New York Post and now of his own Patreon site, sent a tweet he probably should have kept to himself.

Whether Vecsey realized it or not, you’re not going to get away with using that word as a white person, even if you use asterisks and even if you’re quoting Biggie Smalls.

Vecsey immediately faced a torrent of angry responses, but he appeared unfazed, even doubling down a bit.

Here’s a sampling of the angry/disturbed/amused/befuddled response to Vecsey’s tweet:

Multiple users pointed out that Vecsey’s used five asterisks, not four, changing the commonly understood meaning of the word he was quoting.

For what it’s worth, it seems as if Vecsey’s tweet has hit his bank account ever so slightly. The columnist had 247 Patreon supporters as of about 8:30 p.m. ET and is now down to 246 (as of 9:20). Then again, his tweet has more than 650 retweets and was briefly the talk of the sports internet, so on the theory that all publicity is good publicity, maybe he knew what he was doing.

About Alex Putterman

Alex is a writer and editor for The Comeback and Awful Announcing. He has written for The Atlantic, VICE Sports, MLB.com, SI.com and more. He is a proud alum of Northwestern University and The Daily Northwestern. You can find him on Twitter @AlexPutterman.