Well-coiffed Ric Bucher is an interesting guy to follow on twitter because unlike most reporters who (generally) stick to news, he peppers his tweets with opinions. He’s been especially vocal during the Lakers negotiations with Lamar Odom:

Truth on LO? I’m bored w/the story. He can’t get more $ elsewhere. Lakers can’t get anybody like him. They’ll figure it out.

Where LO goes if not LA: Miami or Por, although the latter has shown no interest. FYI, he didn’t reject 3yr/27m, he asked for a 4th yr.

It’s like this: Phil wants him, but LO has to make nice w/Dr. Buss, who’s ticked LO didn’t jump at what Buss sees as generous offer.

Sounds harmless right? One could imagine these as soundbytes on Sportscenter or ESPN radio. We’re not sure what happened next, but seemingly based on those posts, it triggered this response overnight, which is captured in the screengrab above.

Bucher’s probably finding out what NFL reporters will deal with in a month or two: The tweeted word (or even this opinion), even when limited to 140 characters, can be much, much more powerful (and viral) than a soundbyte on Sportscenter or the radio.

You see where this is headed, of course – as twitter explodes in the next year, and most of these reporters/columnists get hundreds of thousands of followers, they’ll be tweeting less and less, because every tweet will be heavily scrutinized.

And then, twitter will die, and everyone will move on to the next social networking fad.