A “Johnathan Daly” account spends all its time defending Knicks’ owner James Dolan and bashing team president Steve Mills

There’s been some fun reporting in the past on suspicious Twitter accounts that only seem to defend team owners, including the Ottawa Citizen ‘s Drake Fenton and Vito Pileci writing in November 2018 that a review they conducted “found at least 20 contrived Twitter accounts, seemingly created to launch a co-ordinated disinformation campaign and to attack media coverage of the Sens while lauding the team and its owner Eugene Melnyk.” As we wrote at the time, “none of this conversation managed to really make the Senators look better,” but the issue of suspicious accounts that only ever defend particular teams, players, executives or owners has not gone away. And an interesting one popped up Wednesday; the account of “Johnathan Daly,” which mostly appears to exist just to tweet defenses of New York Knicks’ owner James Dolan (seen at left with his “JD and The Straight Shot” band performing on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon in 2018) and bash Knicks’ president Steve Mills. (Update: the account briefly disappeared Wednesday night, came back shortly after, then disappeared again Thursday, as noted by @TreyFromNY, who noticed the account early on Wednesday. It then came back later Thursday.)

The @DalyJohnathan account only started tweeting Wednesday afternoon, but quickly posted 70 tweets and replies, with most of those sent to media and fans who said anything negative about Dolan or the Knicks. Here’s the first tweet it ever sent:

https://twitter.com/DalyJohnathan/status/1204843710283993089

That’s in reply to an initial tweet criticizing Mills. And that pattern of defending Dolan and criticizing Mills continued. Some examples:

https://twitter.com/DalyJohnathan/status/1204843767150321664

https://twitter.com/DalyJohnathan/status/1204843956774821889

https://twitter.com/DalyJohnathan/status/1204844121397039111

https://twitter.com/DalyJohnathan/status/1204845201971388422

https://twitter.com/DalyJohnathan/status/1204876331437187074

https://twitter.com/DalyJohnathan/status/1204877174089637890

https://twitter.com/DalyJohnathan/status/1204881778936291328

https://twitter.com/DalyJohnathan/status/1204845475335168000

Really should have used the Scar GIF there, “Johnathan,” but maybe whoever/whatever (it’s possible it’s a program rather than a person here) is behind this isn’t really into memes:

At any rate, what’s also funny about this account is that its only two non-reply tweets (as of Wednesday afternoon) were a classic example of typing what you’re looking for as a tweet rather than a search:

There isn’t currently any proof that this account is controlled by Dolan or anyone with the Knicks, or even any proof that it’s commissioned by them, but its content certainly seems odd. This account is more about constant Dolan promotion than even the actual burner accounts we’ve seen tied to figures like Bryan Colangelo (through his wife), Torey Hunter or Kevin Durant. And we know that Dolan is very, very concerned about how he’s perceived, to the degree of claiming critics have “ill will” and “vendettas,” going to war with a radio station over comments from one personality, keeping files on individual reporters, and calling Rupert Murdoch to get a critical FS1 subway ad pulled. And the Knicks as an organization have brought themselves bad PR in the past by needlessly rebutting others’ comments.

At any rate, whoever is running this account seems to think incredibly highly of Dolan in a way that almost no one else does. And creating an account to send almost 70 tweets defending Dolan and the Knicks in one afternoon is certainly a way to spend your time. But hey, whoever this is also likes The Muppets:

https://twitter.com/DalyJohnathan/status/1204888667946471424

Well, that’s the most reasonable thing you’ve ever said, “Johnathan.”

[Johnathan Daly on Twitter]