Rumors

Pablo Torre Finds Out: We followed the money, from Venmo to IG, and found ex-Bulls guard Antonio Blakeney making it rain with a betting influencer — while trying to get back in the NBA. "Nixon didn't also have an Instagram account where he was like, 'Ayye, look at what my boys got from Watergate!'"

Twitter

Turner and the Indiana Pacers lost this week to the Chicago Bulls. After the game, an angry Pacers fan with the Twitter handle @Life_Of_Cole sent a Venmo request to Turner for $100. The fan believed that Turner, who went just 2-for-10 against Chicago, was responsible for losing the game. Turner hilariously replied back by sending the fan exactly one cent on Venmo with the message, “Here’s a penny for your thoughts.” Turner then turned the beef into a positive with the help of a few other Pacers fans. He pledged to match any Venmo response this weekend and donate it to Texas families in need during the state’s current weather crisis.

Larry Brown Sports

A reporter for the Salt Lake Tribune accidentally ended up with almost $55,000 in his Venmo account, just in time to help more than 1,000 people before the holidays. Andy Larsen, a sports reporter who covers the Utah Jazz and also writes about coronavirus statistics in a data column, said it started when he got a phone call from his mother in Riverton, Utah, several days before Thanksgiving. “Andy, I found your SpongeBob box in your old bedroom,” Larsen said his mom told him. “There must be 60 bucks’ worth of quarters and nickels in here. Do you want to come and get it?”

Washington Post

“So I had a big jar of coins hanging around,” Larsen wrote. “I went to the bank today & had them counted. $164.84. Rather than keeping it, I want to give that out to a few people who could use the help for their household’s Thanksgiving dinner or for Christmas presents. My DMs/replies are open.” Within minutes, the requests started pouring in, he said. But they were outnumbered by something else: people who wanted to donate. “A guy named Jeff Jones said, ‘Andy, I’d like to help — shoot me your Venmo and put me down for $150,’ ” recalled Larsen.

Washington Post

“He was the first one to donate — I was shocked that someone would do that,” he said. “Even more amazing was that minutes later, people began retweeting everywhere and sending me money out of the blue. It just exploded.” By the time Larsen went to bed that night, the balance in his Venmo account was up to $40,358, he said. And about 24 hours later, he had almost $55,000, donated by 992 people.

Washington Post

Trevelin Queen: The first week, we were living in the Delta. My teammate didn’t know that he had some family in East Oakland. His mom told him to go there. We were living in the car three streets down from his mom. So us four went there and they already had like eight people living in there. We had to shower with slides on. No towels, nothing to eat. There were shootouts every day. I was living on an air mattress with a hole in it. But that gave me so much strength, too. I went through all that. This was before Cash App or Venmo, so I went to the Western Union to get money but I was damn near scared to walk by myself. It was so hard. I was always questioning myself, but I stayed positive.

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