Bert Kolde, former college roommate, longtime confidante, longtime courtside seat companion and current top advisor to Portland Trail Blazers owner Paul Allen, is on Twitter @bertk. A team spokesperson has confirmed that it is an official account. At the time of this posting, the account had 24 followers.
Kolde has posted only two tweets since he first began publishing on the account 15 months ago: one to introduce the Seattle Seahawks' new management staff in Sept. 2010 and one to rail on John Canzano of The Oregonian on Thursday for his report about the Blazers having decided to use the Amnesty Clause on guard Brandon Roy. Canzano's report indicated that Allen and Kolde were "calling the shots" and had made up their mind to use the Amnesty Clause on Roy.
"Once again John Canzano got it wrong about the Portland Trail Blazers by using erroneous unnamed sources," Kolde wrote, before linking to a piece written by Mike Tokito of The Oregonian which included a previous denial of the report made by Blazers president Larry Miller at the beginning of a Wednesday media availability.
If this sounds familiar, that's because Blazers COO Sarah Mensah recently opened a Twitter account to dispute a previous report from Canzano and because Miller went out of his way to specifically name-check Canzano on Wednesday.
Also on Wednesday, Miller said the "fan factor" would play a role in the decision whether or not to amnesty Roy. Earlier this week, Blazers fans made Allen's official account -- @PaulGAllen -- trend in Portland by sending him dozens (hundreds?) of messages in support of Roy. On Thursday, a Blazers fan launched an online petition in support of Roy and multiple NBA players spoke up here and here.
-- Ben Golliver | benjamin.golliver@gmail.com | Twitter