This isn’t my first post about Twitter and surely not the last, but it is the MOST important one to date. The NBA and its players have embraced social media like no other. With the help of Twitter there has been virtually no “off-season”. Fans have gotten a chance to interact with and hear from their favorite athletes off the court. One of those players is Patrick O’Bryant.

O’Bryant took to Twitter late this summer and started building his network by following each person back and conversing with them in 140 characters or less. He is not a marquee player but realized that using a platform like this would help fans get to know him. He became more than just the guy drafted 9th overall playing garbage time. And, it wasn’t long before fans were discussing Canadian health care or Milk in bags with Patrick.

Patrick began to get more comfortable and ran a few contests to get his growing fanbase involved. Recently, he pledged to give away tickets to every home and away game for a lucky fan if he reached 2000 followers on Twitter by opening night (Ed. Update: This is going to be a single pair for either a home or away game). Since he had already established a good rapport with some of the Raptor fans they decided to get on board to help get him to his goal. A day later things went a step further. Scott aka @AltRaps (www.altraps.com) proposed that if Patrick managed to get 2500 followers by the end of the month he would donate $500 to the Team Up Foundation (Toronto Raptors Charitable Org.) Upon hearing this O’Bryant offered to match the donation and from there on out the domino effect had begun. (read more here and here) Eric Smith from Raptors.com got a chance to speak to Patrick O’Bryant a few days back and even he sounds blown away with the way things have played out.

This charity has always been great at generating interest and getting donations through the teams relationships with the large corporations. This small gesture that was started by Scott, has now grown into a pledge for over $8000 to be donated to the charity if he reaches the goal. A fan generated donation to a charity that was previously looked at as one that doesn’t need small donations is a big step in the right direction. It just goes to show that even $25 can help towards the bigger picture. If you are reading this, I hope you have a better understanding of what we are trying to accomplish. You don’t need to have any $$ to give just get a friend or two and click here to #follow13POB13. With just over 500 more followers to go, we hope that with the power of social media platforms like Twitter the goal will be reached.

This has been a joint effort. Not only did the fans of the Toronto Raptors get involved, but people across Twitter and other platforms have stepped up to the plate. A quick shout out is in order …

@Romyaquino from Hip Hoop Junkies jumped on board with his contributions right away. He created the follow POB logo that a lot of the fans are using for avatars. (Get yours here)

@Liston @DeenLen and @SUNSFAN4LIFE – Die hard Raptor fans, got on board with the movement and have been working tirelessly to get fans to help Patrick reach his goal.

If you would like to Donate. Make sure you contact Scott – altraps@altraps.com or you can do so directly from the foundation website and you can put it in Patrick O’Bryant’s name.