NBA referee Eric Lewis retires amid investigation into Twitter burner account

Veteran NBA referee Eric Lewis has retired three months after the league started an investigation into “burner” social media accounts that vociferously defended his officiating, the New York Post studies.

The NBA introduced Lewis’ retirement on Wednesday, and stated in a press release: “In light of his decision, the NBA’s investigation into social media activity has been closed.”

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The Twitter account on the centre of the investigation, @CuttliffBlair, with the title username “Blair Cuttliff,” had one response after one other that had appeared to hunt out any criticism of how Lewis was doing his job with the NBA.

The account, which was opened in 2015, had zero followers eight years later.

Lewis was repeatedly accused by varied fan bases of getting a bias for the Celtics in his refereeing.

One account claimed the Celtics had a 54-29 file in video games officiated by Lewis, saying the metric is “f – king insane” and “smells like CORRUPTION”.

The burner account responded: “Not sure if that’s true either. Pretty sure there are other refs with similar stats with top teams. Smells like nothing to sniff.”

Another person requested “Is the league this stupid??!??” to permit Lewis to officiate Celtics video games, to which the burner responded, “Naw Twitter is because they believe this bs,” including three laughing emojis.

The account was following 5 different customers on the social media app, together with the account George Mason’s ladies’s basketball workforce, the place Lewis’ spouse, Vanessa Blair-Lewis, is head coach.

NBA officers aren’t allowed to publicly touch upon their calls with out authorisation of the league.

The NBA’s investigation of Lewis was first reported in May by veteran basketball author Marc Stein.

Lewis had been an NBA official for almost 20 years, and was tabbed as a referee for a number of playoff video games this previous season, together with the Celtics’ win over the Sixers in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semi-finals.

Lewis was not chosen as an official for the NBA Finals because the investigation was ongoing.

This article was initially printed within the New York Post and has been reproduced with permission.