Rockets fire employee who sent offensive tweet to Mavericks
The Houston Rockets have fired the employee responsible for sending an offensive tweet to the Dallas Mavericks on Tuesday.
With the Rockets leading late in Game 5 and set to eliminate the Mavericks, the Rockets' official Twitter account sent a tweet with a gun emoji next to a horse head emoji, the implication being obvious that Houston was about to put Dallas out of its misery.
AWKWARD TWITTER TENSION pic.twitter.com/uRZSebMZ1D
— rach (@RachaelHoops) April 29, 2015
The Rockets immediately deleted the tweet and issued an apology, later confirming the firing to ESPN.
Our Tweet earlier was in very poor taste & not indicative of the respect we have for the @dallasmavs & their fans. We sincerely apologize.
— Houston Rockets (@HoustonRockets) April 29, 2015
It wasn't exactly an appropriate tweet, but the employee's firing surprised many on Wednesday. Chad Shanks, the employee in question, and the team's now-former digital communications manager, sent out a three-part tweet addressing the situation while also changing his Twitter bio to read: "Will probably be tweeting less about basketball now."
Sometimes you can go too far. I will no longer run @HoustonRockets but am grateful to the organization that let me develop an online voice.
— Chad Shanks (@chadjshanks) April 29, 2015
I did my best to make the account the best in the NBA by pushing the envelope, but pushed too far for some and for that I apologize.
— Chad Shanks (@chadjshanks) April 29, 2015
I hope there's another organization out there in need of someone willing to take chances and create engaging social content. I hope.
— Chad Shanks (@chadjshanks) April 29, 2015
Again, the tweet was in poor taste, but the basketball community on Twitter seemed taken aback by the swift and harsh punishment.
I also continue to be disappointed that the only way we feel we can make the world a better place or learn is for someone to be fired.
— Hardwood Paroxysm (@HPbasketball) April 29, 2015
Really silly, IMO, that a kid would get fired over using a couple emojis in a tweet. Not the most tasteful, but so what? And I love animals.
— Chris Herring (@HerringWSJ) April 29, 2015
Fire everyone, for everything.
— Zach Lowe (@ZachLowe_NBA) April 29, 2015
Oh, man. Rockets fired the guy that sent that tweet last night? I don't think they had to go that far.
— Rey-Rey (@TheNoLookPass) April 29, 2015
maaaaannnnn...FIRED?
— Robby Kalland (@RKalland) April 29, 2015
Even Dirk Nowitzki found himself asked about the tweet, using the opportunity to take a jab at Gersson Rosas, the former Mavericks general manager and current Rockets VP of basketball operations.
Dirk on "unfortunate" @HoustonRockets tweet: "The guy behind the mobile phone was a little too excited or something. Maybe it was Gersson."
— Tim MacMahon (@espn_macmahon) April 29, 2015
Shanks spoke to The Sporting News about his termination and explained his thought process with the tweet, taking full ownership of the situation:
Once we had the game (and the series) locked up with a minute or so left, I wanted to take a jab at the Mavs (something I’ve done every so often with other teams), and that idea popped into my head. I meant it to just be a play on taking an old horse out to pasture that would get our fans even more pumped up and agitate Mavs fans. Obviously, things didn’t turn out that way. I didn’t think people would equate pretend violence on an emoji horse with actual violence on a real horse. That’s not what I intended, but my job was to anticipate how these things would go over, and I failed.