NBA Fans Are Fascinated By A Burner Account That Broke The James Harden News Before Shams And Woj

Around 4:45 p.m. EST on Thursday, The Athletic’s Shams Charania and ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski announced that Philadelphia 76ers guard James Harden would be exercising his $35.6 million player option to work with the team on a trade elsewhere. Yet Charania and Wojnarowski didn’t break the news to certain corners of NBA Twitter. A day earlier, an account with the username “@droppingdimes20” and display name “The Amateur NBA Analyst” tweeted “Other thing is James Harden will opt into his contract and request a trade. Don’t know which team he wants though”

While the tweet gained some traction initially, it didn’t explode, given the fact that random folks emerge from the woodworks to try and cosplay as newsbreakers around free agency every year. Plus, the account had only about 1,000 followers at the time and generally posted clips analyzing Draft prospects. After Charania and Wojnarowski confirmed the news, the tweet and account took off, reaching a high point of roughly 3,500 likes and over 43,000 followers. It tweeted “IM HIM” and trolled Wojnarowski a few times while basking in the moment — and also cryptically tweeting about other stars that could be in the news soon, including Kyrie Irving.

Then, @droppingdimes20 vanished. The account was scrubbed away. They deactivated, only briefly returning to clarify that other accounts popping up with similar usernames were merely imitations and not the real @droppingdimes20. NBA Twitter went into a frenzy over @droppingdimes20 when news of Harden’s decision made waves and that frenzy exponentially grew once the account disappeared. Plenty of funny reactions and memes graced the Twitter sphere as to why they had suddenly left.

We may never again hear from @droppingdimes20, who was, in fact, HIM — briefly. We may knew never what their Twitter fate is or what they’re up to. But we’ll always have those fascinating two hours on June 29, 2023 in the immediate aftermath of Harden deciding to depart from the City of Brotherly Love.