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A “Vegas” twitter account going by the handle of @Pregame_Steam — the same Twitter account that tweeted Bryce Harper agreed to a deal with the Phillies a month before it became official — claims to have a source that has indicated Jimmy Butler and the Sixers are close to finalizing a deal to keep Butler in Philly:
Source: Sixers and Jimmy Butler getting close to finalizing deal. Talks picked up last 48 hours — @Pregame_Steam
I cannot testify to the legitimacy of this account. While they “called” Bryce Harper to Philly, that could have simply been a lucky guess — plenty of people could have and did make that prediction. A more impressive prediction from this account was in regards to Al Horford. On July 1st, 2016, @Pregame_Steam tweeted the following:
Breaking:
Multiple sources are reporting that Al Horford has reached multi year agreement in principle with Boston Celtics — @Pregame_Steam
The very next day (July 2nd, 2016), Adrian Wojnarowski contradicted this sentiment, tweeting the following:
Sources: Boston, Washington falling back on Al Horford, with Hawks strengthening in belief that a deal can be reached to re-sign him. — @wojespn
As we now know, the Boston Celtics and Al Horford did indeed reach an agreement on a multi-year deal, verifying @Pregame_Steam’s report. So did he/she really beat Woj to a scoop, or was it a lucky guess?
More importantly, is this latest attempt at predicting a headliner deal (in this case, Jimmy Butler) just throwing darts or is it based on legitimate intel? I suppose only time will tell.