A new Twitter meme pokes fun at J.J. Barea

If you blinked, you may have missed it. But there it was. J.J. Barea was trending on Twitter late in the evening Wednesday and into Thursday morning. Since there’s no basketball right now, or for the foreseeable future, you may be wondering—perhaps even worrying—why he was trending. Don’t worry, he doesn’t have coronavirus. I’ll tell you why he’s trending.

There’s a birthday meme floating around NBA Twitter asking people to play along. Promoted by user @Mo0seSN, it reads, “Your (Birth month) has to throw an Alley Oop to your (Birth day) to win the game. Did you win?”

If your birthday happens to be the 27^th of any month, someone is throwing a lob to Barea. The parings, as you can guess, are pretty funny. Here are just a few

And finally, a voice of reason.

The official stance of Mavs Moneyball is that we’re with you, @itcould_besweet. Barea is a saint and slandering an NBA champion who helped change and define a Finals series is always bad business. That said, it’s OK to laugh sometimes.

Without basketball, we’ll all have to find ways to entertain ourselves in the weeks and months ahead. At least for a moment Barea can spark some joy in our lives again. Hopefully, the next time he does it will be for humanitarian reasons or for annoying the hell out of an opponent on the court.

Feel free to name your alley-oop duo in the comments.