I also wonder if there's team-directed message/narrative shaping that comes across as being "in favor" of one guy and "against" another that has everything to do with marketing and business and nothing to do with the players at all (minus their likeness).

There was an interview with the LAKings twitter person once and the interviewer asked about the Voynov situation and what could be tweeted about and it spiraled into a discussion about the larger narrative and how all the tweeting seems like fun and games but really most teams use all their social media to craft the larger message that they're using to market the team.