San Antonio Spurs forward Julian Champagnie looks at his phone after participating in a shoot-around practice at Moody Center on Friday morning, March 15, 2024, in Austin, Texas. The Spurs spent the weekend in Austin for their I-35 series games against the Denver Nuggets on Friday and the Brooklyn Nets on Sunday.

Spurs guard Devin Vassell read something in the locker room after a recent game that disturbed him. And it wasn’t a frightening passage from the latest science-fiction novel teammate Victor Wembanyama was reading.

It was criticism on X, formerly Twitter, from WOAI-TV sports anchor Don Harris written in real time in the midst of a tense game:

“Low basketball IQ mistakes keeping OKC in it. Devin guilty again. Bad shots, bad decisions, bad turnovers, bad fouls. Spurs by 2 going to the 4th.”

Digesting the tweet shortly after recording 28 points and nine assists in a 132-118 win over Oklahoma City on Feb. 29, Vassell banged out a response:

The kerfuffle illustrates what Spurs coach Gregg Popovich and others fear is a growing danger in the NBA: Players’ obsession with social media commentary about their on-court performance and off-court lives.

To combat it, the Spurs have brought in speakers to counsel players about the “negatives of social media” and to stress they “don’t have to be slaves to it,” Popovich said.

“They don’t have to live every moment wondering what somebody is saying to them, good or bad,” Popovich said. “People don’t have to know when they go to the bathroom and eat a meal or wash their car. It shouldn’t affect their lives at all.”

Vassell said in an interview that while reacting to social media criticism is out of character for him, Harris’ comments were “just so outlandish” he had to respond.

“It’s click bait,” Vassell said. “They want to talk (expletive). It is what it is. But we can’t let that faze us.”

Harris responded on X that he wasn’t hating on the 23-year-old, that he was just doing his job by “calling it like I see it.” Harris composed the tweet after watching Vassell take a questionable, contested jumper in the waning seconds of the third quarter and then follow it with a foul on the other end that resulted in a 3-point play that helped the Thunder pull almost even after trailing by 12.

At that point, it looked like the Spurs were headed for yet another collapse. But they pulled it out in the end, leading Harris to congratulate Vassell, who had 10 points on 4-of-5 shooting from the field in the fourth period:

“Great finish. Big win for your squad.”

The back-and-forth highlights how players are focused on X and other platforms, which are used not just by award-winning journalists like Harris but by trolls who derive pleasure from getting under a player’s skin.

“It’s league wide and it’s been this way for a while,” Rockets coach Ime Udoka said. “Whether it’s halftime or the end of the game, the first thing a few guys do is grab their phone to see what their (personal trainer) is saying or their parents or (people) on social media.”

With social media followings that can range from the tens of thousands to more than 200 million in the case of LeBron James, NBA players are wide open to abuse by anonymous detractors over a range of topics, including their play, salaries and wardrobe. Increasingly, many have fought back. Among the most active counter punchers is Phoenix superstar Kevin Durant, who has engaged in feuds on X with Brooklyn fans and many others, including the shoe brand Adidas, Philadelphia star Joel Embiid and actor Michael Rapaport.

Experts say no matter the source, it all taps into wiring in humans dating back to prehistoric times.

“Our brains are well-organized to make sure we are fitting in,” said Michael Gervais, a Los Angeles sports psychologist. “It goes back to 250,000 years ago when belonging meant safety and being kicked out or rejected or overly critiqued by the tribe was your death sentence.”

Gervais, author of the book “The First Rule of Mastery: Stop Worrying About What People Think of You,” was thrilled to learn about Popovich’s efforts to help players deal with social media.

“I really appreciate what he had to say,” Gervais said. “I reinforce it — full stop.”

Obsessing over social media comments can impact the performance and mental health of players, Gervais said.

“We live in a performance-based obsessed culture, so it would make sense people would develop a performance-based identity,” Gervais said. “And a performance-based identity is ‘I am who I am when I do what I do well.'”

But Gervais said messages from “elders” about “putting down your phones” usually isn’t enough to change behavior.

“It is not until they are sick and tired of being sick and tired from outsourcing their sense of self to others that change can happen,” Gervais said. “But Pop is on it. The fundamental commitment to mastery is to stop worrying about what people think of you.”

As the team with the NBA’s youngest roster, the Spurs are particularly vulnerable to social media distractions, experts believe.

“Older players, like LeBron James for example, are probably desensitized to it,” San Antonio sports psychologist Julie Wiernik said. “But the younger generation is caring about what people are thinking about them and it can throw off their consistency.

“You have to limit your distractions and quite frankly social media has become a major distraction.”

But one of the Spurs’ youngest players who also happens to already rank as one of the world’s most visible athletes has found a sure-fire way to ignore critics.

“I turn my phone off,” said Wembanyama, 20.

And even when it’s on, it’s unlikely he would be aware of what people say about him.

“Most of the time those apps aren’t even on my phone,” said Wembanyama, who has 3.7 million followers on Instagram. “I delete them for days, weeks, or months sometimes. And whenever I want to look something up, I download them again.”

He indicated he only uses social media to keep up with friends and family.

“It’s not something I ever had to worry about,” he said.

Although he hasn’t gone to the same lengths as Wembanyama, Spurs point guard Tre Jones employs a philosophy that helps him tune out negative comments.

“I try to keep things in perspective,” he said. “People are fans of the game and are sharing their opinions. And social media is an easy way for people to voice their opinions without meeting you face to face and saying those things. A lot of people get caught up in that. For me, it’s just about staying focused on what you know is most important in life.”

It’s not just criticism that affects players. Positive feedback can also be a problem.

“You can definitely start feeding into your own hype,” Spurs center Zach Collins said. “If you read too many positive things, you can start getting complacent. On the other hand, the negative stuff can tear at your confidence. So you just try to keep an even keel and embrace positives of social media like brand building and keeping in contact with friends. But also have it be an in-one-ear, out-the-other thing.”

Popovich suggested players should even ignore comments from loved ones.

“Most people in your family don’t even know what the hell they are talking about when they tell you something about basketball unless they are a coach or played,” he said.

Other coaches share Popovich’s concerns about social media. Golden State’s Steve Kerr said he talks to his players frequently about the “danger of getting locked in on that stuff,” a temptation he never faced as an NBA player from 1988-2003.

“The judgment is more difficult today than it’s ever been because these guys have it at their fingertips,” Kerr said. “It’s much more difficult to avoid. In my day, it was pretty easy and didn’t take much discipline. But now with the way we all use phones, it’s way harder. And we have had plenty of players who have been affected in a negative way.”

Kerr said he would never ban phones in the locker room because “that would be a good way to get fired.” Instead, he tells players dealing with a barrage of negative comments in the NBA fishbowl is part of the job — and it’s a pretty good one.

“I remind guys there’s a reason you are making the money you are,” he said. “You can’t have it both ways. You can’t make this amazing salary and then expect to not have to deal with the social media stuff because that is a huge part of the revenue stream. You have to look at it as, ‘OK, this is part of the gig,’ and you get injured, booed, traded, cut, judged and criticized.

“There is a lot of negative stuff about this job, but nobody is walking away from it. We love what we do and we do stuff really exciting and fun, so you try to focus on that. But it’s really hard. It’s human nature to want to know what people are saying about you. So it has never been more difficult to be a professional athlete than it is now.”

Udoka, a former Spurs player and assistant, reminds the Rockets about something he once heard Popovich say: “People’s opinions of you are none of your business.”

“I am not a sensitive guy and I don’t have social media, but a lot of our guys probably care more than I do,” Udoka said. “But why would they be on there worrying about what others are talking about?”

Indiana coach Rick Carlisle favors Wembanyama’s delete-the-app approach.

“If you don’t see it, it doesn’t affect you one way or the other,” he said.

While Popovich hopes players are putting their phones down, he said there’s no sure way to tell.

“I don’t follow them around day and all night, see how many minutes they’re spending on their phones,” he said. “But we’ve brought in people to talk to them about that so they understand there are ways they can spend their time a whole lot more efficiently and meaningfully. Hopefully, they are paying attention.”