I have two pet peeves.

One: Cold butter. Is there anything more annoying than trying to spread cold butter onto a piece of bread at a restaurant? I love watching patrons in mid-conversation stabbing their bread, ripping off little pieces of dough, poking holes through an innocent bun with their butter knives and acting like nothing is going terribly wrong. I live in Philadelphia and only frequent WBRs (warm butter restaurants). Apparently it’s recommended to refrigerate butter at 41°F. Screw that noise.

Two: People who still say “Facebook me!” or “Follow me on Twitter!” It’s 2012. Odds are I’ve already Facebook stalked you and if I haven’t, it means I don’t want to see your status updates.

This post has a point…if you are a basketball nut like myself there are some writers/bloggers/columnists you need to follow on Twitter. I won’t point you in the sports/entertainment direction like @ochocinco and if you are reading this blog, you probably know many of the ESPN guys (Ric Bucher, Marc Stein, Chris Broussard). No need to remind you to follow those fellas.

This is a list of guys (and girls) who aren’t regularly seen on TV, but provide excellent insight and inside information for their followers.

Adrian Wojnorowski: @WojYahooNBA

If you enjoy being the first among your friends to know that a NBA trade went down or that player X signed with team Y for Z amount of dollars, then follow Woj. You just have to follow this guy for NBA info on trades and signings. Guy must have a crazy source list and he’s pretty outspoken too. Ask LeBron.

Roland Lazenby: @lazenby

He’s written award-winning non-fiction books on Jerry West, The Showtime Lakers, Phil Jackson, Michael Jordan, the Chicago Bulls etc… He knows PJax and Tex Winter and their relationships with Scottie and MJ. He was there and he frequently tweets about previous conversations with those guys. Don’t take my word for it. Just check out his timeline.

Zach Lowe: @ZachLowe_SI

NBA Blogger? Think you have a great idea for a blog post? Odds are Zach Lowe’s already written it on his blog The Point Forward. Trust me. It’s happened to me a bunch of times. And it’s annoying. But he’s one of the best at quickly digesting a trade and regurgitating it back to his readers in a fast, yet well-written and thoughtful post. He also regularly cites synergysports, which turned me on to the awesome basketball analytics website.

Kate Fagan: @katefagan3

I miss the original @Deepsixer3! Kate covered the Sixers for The Philadelphia Inquirer before ESPN plucked her away. She now writes for ESPN.com and espnW and was most recently in Indianapolis covering the Super Bowl. Eloquent, insightful and analytical without hitting her readers over the head with numbers, Fagan was a tremendous asset to the Inq and Sixers fans alike. Here’s a link to her last post and just scroll down to the comments section. All love. She knows of which she speaks, having played college ball at the University of Colorado. She still writes about basketball, albeit less frequently. No matter. Fagan is a must follow and if you are interested, check out her website.

Bethlehem Shoals: @FreeDarko

Funny, ironic, insightful, founder/creator of the Classical and contributor to GQ.com, Shoals recently wrote a great piece on the Sixers for the Classical and Allen Iverson for GQ.com. He provides concise tweets that usually sum up the day’s flash in the pan NBA stories with humor.

Holly MacKenzie: @stackmack

Holly Mack has straight love for the NBA. No other way to put it. She interned and wrote for SLAM magazine, blogged for theBasketball Jones and was an NBA writer for RaptorBlog. Her best tweets are the ones in which she simply cannot contain her joy of watching NBA basketball. After your team loses by 25, it’s not a bad idea to read her timeline and remember that the fight continues tomorrow.

Larry Coon: @LarryCoon

A must follow during the NBA lockout, Coon is a master at simplifying the CBA in a clear and concise manner. His tweets can put you to sleep, but if you want to know your team’s cap situation, you better be following this guy.

Tom Moore: @Tmoorepburbs

Tom Moore is a Sixers beat writer for phillyburbs.com and maybe I am coming off as a homer here but he tweets the right way for a beat writer: Facts, facts and more facts. Accurate and often. That’s all I ask from the beat writers I follow. More and more we’re seeing objectivity slowly drifting away in sports journalism. I make my own opinions, I want objectivity from my beat writers. If you are a Sixers fan and want to know the results of Spencer Hawes’ MRI, follow Mr. Moore.

@mysynergysports/@NBAstatscube/@hoopdata

I started this blog about a year ago not knowing what it would become. I still don’t. But I have realized that I can’t post about a team or a player without checking one, if not all of these websites. Their tweets are infrequent, but if you crave some interesting analytical statistics about Kobe’s shooting percentage in the fourth quarter of games when in isolation, these are the sites to follow.

Sebastian Pruiti: @sebastianpruiti

It’s one thing to read about a pick and roll rotation, it’s another to see it visually on your computer screen. Pruiti is a master and analyzing the tape and making it easy for the reader to see why a player was positioned a certain way or why a coach called a certain play at that moment of the game. Pruiti brings that insight to his tweets. A weekly contributor to Grantland and founder of nbaplaybook.com, Pruiti is also working video for the Fort Wayne Mad Ants of the NBA Developmental League. He’s going the Coach Spo route. I dig that. Must follow.



Walt Clyde Frazier: @Waltfrazier

Get LeaguePass. Watch Knicks games. Listen to Clyde. Case closed.

Anthony Calabro: @9450blog

You had to see this coming: Follow me on Twitter!