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NBA News: Referee Eric Lewis Retires, Social Media Investigation Closed – LakersNation.com
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Corey Hansford
Over the past few months, one of the more intriguing NBA stories has involved NBA official Eric Lewis. Following a controversial no-call in the Los Angeles Lakers regular season loss to the Boston Celtics, of which Lewis was part of the officiating crew, many on social media began to point out that Lewis and his entire family were huge Celtics fans.
While nothing happened in the immediate aftermath, a burner Twitter account believed to have been run by Lewis came to light, and the NBA would eventually investigate the matter. In fact, Lewis was not allowed to referee the NBA Finals due to that investigation being ongoing at the time.
With the investigation still ongoing and the 2023-24 NBA season not too far off, the matter has finally come to a close, but not in the way many expected. The NBA announced that Lewis has retired as an official, and thus, the investigation into his social media activity has been closed:
The following was released by the NBA. pic.twitter.com/ThEXZZcrl7
— NBA Official (@NBAOfficial) August 30, 2023
This announcement will bring about many questions about what had been found after the league looked into Lewis’ social media. His older brother Eric claimed to have been behind the account in question, but it wasn’t known whether or not that was true.
The fact that Lewis retired and this investigation is closed, with information from it likely never coming to light, would lead many to believe that some damning things were found, and this was a way for Lewis to get out without facing serious repercussions. Moving forward, the big question now will be how the NBA can prevent biases from officials potentially affecting games.
Everyone was a basketball fan growing up and likely had a favorite team, but they should be able to put their fandom aside to do their job. This matter also goes to show the dangers of social media, as Lewis was believed to be defending himself on that burner account. While it is good to put this behind us as a whole, there are still plenty of questions that will remain unanswered.
Right now, the only basketball going on is at the 2023 FIBA World Cup, where Team USA has been dominant so far. Now, the Americans move on to the second round group stage, where they will take on a Jonas Valanciunas-led Lithuania squad, followed by Montenegro led by Nikola Vucevic.
Should they continue to take care of business, Team USA would then move on to the quarterfinals next week.
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