NBA Coaches Just Aren't Into Twitter

PHOENIX -- We've been telling you about NBA players and Twitter for a while now -- you know, because we're just that cutting edge. But only recently has the phenomenon made it's way into the mainstream media, thanks to a head coach being less than thrilled with the idea of one of his players filing updates during halftime.

More and more coaches are being asked about it, and not surprisingly, the response is varying degrees of the following: they just don't get it.

Utah Jazz head coach Jerry Sloan was asked about the incident with Charlie Villanueva, and, like most people in his demographic, he had virtually no idea what he was even being asked about.

"I don't follow that," Sloan said. "I don't even have a computer. I don't know how to turn one on. I don't know what you're talking about. I'm going to be totally honest. How would you do that?"

Sloan was told that Villanueva could do it through his cell phone. This brought more confusion. "I have a phone, but I don't know how to use it that way," Sloan said. "I wish I did, but I didn't want to be aggravated. I've just kind of been that way all along."

Sloan has had a no cell phone rule on the team bus - - the Jazz's p.r. staff often has to text us with updates about practice times and whatnot - - but is realistic about how closely his players are adhering to it.

"I know they're back there on the bus, hiding around, doing that stuff," Sloan said.

Suns' head coach Alvin Gentry is a little more in the know thanks to his daughter getting him signed up, but still doesn't really understand the fascination.

"I can't believe this thing, my daughter signed me up for this thing last week or something, I don't know," Gentry said in his office, before the Suns were set to face the Sixers.

"She told me to just put anything on there. So I put 'oh, we got a tough game against Houston,' and I get 900 people [replying]! I was like no, I don't do the 900 people thing. I didn't know all of these people just read everything that you write. Shaq's got 200,000!"

When I informed Gentry of Shaq's little scavenger hunts (or games of "Twitter tag"), where he invites people to stalk him and touch him to win tickets to a Suns' game, the coach didn't exactly see himself doing that -- except maybe with one exception.

"That's not gonna happen here, boys. I'll say, come touch me Halle Berry and you can get tickets, maybe," Gentry joked.

Regardless of whether or not coaches in the league "get" the Twitter thing or not, it's something that's only going to get more popular as time goes on. And as for the Charlie Villanueva saga? He's already looking for a loophole.

"About to take my nap, but I'm looking for some answers here, what's the difference between halftime twitting and halftime interview?," @CV31 tweeted.

That's a very good question.