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Austin Carr joining Twitter was the best part of the NBA season

The Cleveland Cavaliers didn't have a great season in the NBA. But something emerged from this season that fans of EVERY team can be happy about.

By Conrad Kaczmarek
USA TODAY Sports

As I sit back and reflect upon the 2012-13 Cleveland Cavaliers season, I get kind of sad. It wasn't a very good season. It was plagued with injuries and was utterly disappointing to fans of the team. But amidst the rubble of another horrible losing season, I have managed to find a lone bright spot. No, this wasn't the emergence of Tristan Thompson as an actual basketball player. No, this wasn't chatting with C.J. Miles about Community in the Cavs locker room. No, it wasn't the Cavs' kickass intro video. This was something much more significant.

Austin Carr made a Twitter account

And it's freaking phenomenal. Before I continue to describe why Austin Carr's Twitter account is great, you should follow him right now if you don't already. His handle is @MrCavalier34 and he's at just under 10,000 followers. He should have more followers than that. He should have all of the followers.

He exploded onto the Twitter scene during the middle of the season after much nagging from his partner, Fred McLeod. McLeod is pretty great on Twitter himself. He tweets while he calls games, which seems like some sort of dark wizardry because that's probably impossible. Austin was initially quite opposed to creating an account, but quickly embraced it once he came around.

I don't think there's a single person on Twitter who tweets more like how they talk than Austin Carr. You know how Fox Sports Ohio broadcasts are filled with Carr's emotional outbursts and sometimes incoherent thoughts? Well that's exactly what his Twitter account does. Each tweet is filled with passionate typos. His love for the Cavs is apparent and it's impossible to NOT read his tweets in his voice. Every gameday, he greets his followers and tells them it's gametime. This usually occurs 2 to 3 hours before the tipoff.

Leading up to games, he tweets out some stats about the Cavs' opponent. Sometimes those stats are useful and sometimes those stats are total nonsense.

Here's an example of a relatively insightful tweet.

Here's an example of a not-so-insightful tweet.

I know you are all shocked to learn that the worst team in the NBA struggles to win when they score under 80 points at home. This season, teams were 2-41 when they scored fewer than 80 points at home. The Bobcats were 0-4. Not a particularly helpful stat, but we'll take it.

Like Fred McLeod, Austin started to tweet during games and give his raw analysis of what's happening on the court. It's impressive because he isn't just repeating what he has said on air. These are thoughts are totally different from his on-air color commentary. You really need to be watching the broadcast AND following his Twitter account to get the full Austin Carr experience.

See? That's some pretty solid analysis. And it's quite impressive that he's able to get those thoughts onto Twitter while also doing color commentary for the game. Of course, the punctuation is a bit off sometimes which makes his tweets only slightly easier to read than Tony Allen's. But it's still awesome.

Oh and Austin Carr loves question marks. He uses them all the time. He can't get enough of them.

At some point in the season, he discovered emoticons. And then he started using them all the time. Like, all the time.

Two things became very clear from his Twitter account: Austin Carr really misses playing basketball and the result of the Cavs game makes him either very sad or very happy.

There's something heartbreaking about seeing Austin Carr use a sad face on Twitter. Maybe if the players all followed him on Twitter, they'd have some more motivation and give a harder effort. I know that I would hate to be responsible for making Austin Carr sad.

You see that?? You ruined Austin Carr's Easter. Way to go.

When the Cavs have a big game against someone like the Miami Heat, Austin becomes a fan just like any of us.

And then when the Cavs suffer devastating losses...

But you can't keep Austin Carr down for long. In the end, he's just a hopeful Cavs fan like me and you. He's sat through some of the worst seasons in franchise history and believes that someday soon, it will all be worth it.

One day, Austin. One day.

Go Cavs.

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