NBA fines Bucks guard Brandon Jennings $7,500 for Twitter post after victory over Blazers

NBA fines Bucks guard Brandon Jennings for tweet

MILWAUKEE — Bucks rookie Brandon Jennings was fined $7,500 by the NBA on Friday for posting a message on his Twitter account after Milwaukee’s 108-101 double-overtime win over Portland last weekend.

Jennings was fined for the timing of his post, not the content, when he tweeted: “Back to 500. Yess!!! “500″ means where doing good. Way to Play Hard Guys.”

The fine was announced several hours before the Bucks played at Cleveland, and Jennings reacted on his Twitter account.

“I understand I got fined, but 7500?” Jennings tweeted after learning of the decision. “For being happy over a win, you would of thought I said something bad. I mean it was a big win for us.”

Asked about the fine before Friday’s game, Jennings admitted he made a rookie mistake.

“It was a lessson learned and I’ll move on from it,” he said. “Don’t Tweet when you’re in the arena. I won’t do that anymore. That’s a lot of money, especially around Christmas time. You do a lot of shopping for the family. It doesn’t look like I’ll be able to do that this year. I may just have to give out a bunch of Under Armour gear.”

According to the NBA’s social media policy, players cannot tweet during game time, defined as beginning 45 minutes before the game starts and ending after players have finished talking to the media following the game. His post came at 10:39 p.m. on Saturday, about 15 minutes after the game ended.

Jennings, a prep star who played professionally in Europe for a year before being picked 10th in the draft, has already had a run-in with social media.

He apologized shortly after being drafted by the Bucks for drawing unwanted attention when a profanity-laced and provocative telephone conversation he had was videotaped and posted on YouTube.

Jennings, averaging 20.7 points and 6.0 assists in 23 games, said he’d learned from the incident and he shut down his original Twitter account to focus only on the season.

He couldn’t help himself, though, and revealed on his Facebook site on Nov. 9 that he’d established a new Twitter account.

He told The Associated Press at the time he wanted to stay connected to his fans and didn’t think it would be a distraction again. Five days later, he became the youngest player in NBA history to score at least 50 points with 55 against Golden State.

But he may be rethinking his plans after losing a chunk of his rookie salary, or at least scaling back his holiday plans.

“I’m bout to delete my twitter,” Jennings tweeted Friday. “Cost me 7500. Looks like no Gucci and Louie for Xmas.”