Blazers a virtual dynasty in wide, wild world of NBA Twittersphere

Twitter is an ever-growing medium for sports fans to engage with their favorite teams. The Portland Trail Blazers’ account and the Blazers players themselves continue to be among the best in the NBA.

The popularity of NBA Twitter is evident and continues to grow.

And the Portland Trail Blazers’ Twitter account has manifested into a character of its own.

Ranked the NBA’s best by Complex in 2015, 2016 and 2017, @trailblazers finished third in the 2018 rankings.

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Currently clocking in with about 1.14 million followers, the social media personality is most recognized for throwing shade at opponents, sending individualized holiday cards — and even birthing a meme.

Blazers on Twitter

Many Rip City fans are familiar with the Lakers-Blazers rivalry. But one of its most recent iterations came in an online spat between a Lakers fan and the official Blazers Twitter.

Lakers supporter @808Astro tweeted “@trailblazers will never be on @Lakers level” not long after the 2017 NBA Summer League championship game between the two. (The Lakers won.)

The Blazers verified account appropriately replied:

Ed Davis

It seems fitting that its constituents resemble the team’s online attitude as well. For example, former backup big man Ed Davis, a man of few tweets (only 2,206 since July of 2009), blasted the NBA’s official account during #NBADunkWeek.

The original post featured four photos of dunks, three of which featured Blazers players on the receiving end. The tweet showcases Detroit’s Stanley Johnson and OKC’s Russell Westbrook extending their right arms to slam it on Big Ed.

But Davis let the NBA — and the Twittersphere — know what happened, quickly replying, “F*** outta here they both missed both of them.” Davis’ response garnered about 2,700 retweets and more than 12,300 likes.

Even Davis’ new team, the Brooklyn Nets, chimed in, tweeting a GIF of Davis swatting away Johnson’s dunk attempt.

CJ and CP

Another example is one of the NBA’s largest Twitter personalities, CJ McCollum.

Back when the Blazers played the Memphis Grizzlies in early 2017, swingman Chandler Parsons airballed a three-point shot.

And Blazers’ Twitter roasted him for it.

Parsons fired back, tweeting, “Good luck in the lottery show this year.”

CJ then hit back at Parsons with a quote retweet that read, “We hit the lottery by not signing you,” amassing about 77,300 likes.

Burn.

CJ and KD

Twitter fingers were most recently in full effect when Kevin Durant joined CJ on his podcast “Pull Up.”

The two had a heated conversation regarding the Warriors’ acquisitions of both Durant and DeMarcus Cousins — as well as Portland’s apparently nonexistent title odds.

“You know you guys aren’t gonna win a championship,” Durant said to McCollum.

The two then took to Twitter to follow up on KD’s departure from OKC, bringing in the analogy of leaving your brothers to join the gang that initially beat you.

Fond of Twitter

The Blazers account isn’t always confrontational. This past Valentine’s Day, the Trail Blazers’ Twitter account posted a series of virtual greeting cards with romantic puns addressed to the other teams in the Association.

The cards range from this one to the Pacers …

… to this one aimed at the good folks in Milwaukee:

The Blazers’ account also sent its loving regards to other local professional sports teams, such as the Winterhawks and the Timbers, further demonstrating the creativity and cleverness of the organization’s social media presence.

And lastly, who can forget arguably the greatest Blazer in history, Cash Considerations. After trading Tim Quarterman to the Houston Rockets for cash considerations in June 2017, Blazers Twitter posted this gem to welcome their newly acquired asset:

The social media trailblazer cashed in with almost 100,000 likes on both posts.

With this amount of prolific, spotlight-stealing tweeting, it’s surprising to see that Portland ranks in the bottom half of the league in total Twitter followers at No. 17.

After all, the Blazers Twitter team brings a certain tenacity to their gig that an underdog Tweeter must possess to compete with the heavyweights.

Now we’re just waiting for that Twitter championship banner to be hanging from the rafters in the Moda Center.