Blazers' Aminu denies authoring homophobic tweets
Portland Trail Blazers forward Al-Farouq Aminu has denied he had anything to do with a handful of homophobic tweets posted to his Twitter account in 2010 and 2011.
A controversy grew in recent days after SB Nation reported on posts from the photo-sharing site imgur, where archived tweets by various NBA players - most from before they played in the league and were under less public scrutiny - drew attention.
"Once I was made aware of it, I wanted to make sure that no resemblance of it was up or anything like that," Aminu told ESPN's Kevin Arnovitz of the tweets, which have since been deleted. "I hope it didn't offend anyone or that anyone thought that those are my ideas or my thoughts or anything like that. I'm saddened by it. I know people that are (gay) and family members that are (gay)."
Aminu told ESPN that his Twitter account has been hacked on more than one occasion. "I didn't pay it much mind," Aminu said. "I just changed my password and information."
Most of the tweets were published when Aminu was playing college basketball at Wake Forest in 2010. One suggested people with gay roommates should commit suicide.
"I have no hate toward anybody," Aminu said. "I also don't want this to be a thing that's bigger than what's going on with the team. It's not fair to my teammates. I feel bad about the whole situation."
Aminu's Blazers host the Golden State Warriors in Game 3 of their Western Conference semifinal Saturday, with Portland trailing 2-0.