A series of posts and direct messages from the Twitter account @gethigher77 has been screenshotted, circulated, and attributed to Houston Rockets star Kevin Durant. The contents of those screenshots have been compiled here for your browsing ease. The messages from @gethigher77 have a sense of humor roughly congruent with Durant's, indicate familiarity with NBA figures in Durant's orbit, and besmirch Durant's teammates past (Russell Westbrook, Kyrie Irving) and present (Alperen Sengun, Jabari Smith Jr.), but none of that would be difficult to fake. This all broke into wider circulation during the All-Star Weekend; Durant was seen glued to his phone during warmups before the main event, although, in fairness, he seems to always be on his phone.
Of course, there is historical context here. In 2017, Durant was caught trying to operate a burner: He accidentally tweeted from his main account, referring to himself in the third person, and confessed to doing so. In 2021, the league fined Durant $50,000 for sending Instagram messages with homophobic slurs to actor Michael Rapaport, a target who has become less sympathetic in the years since. In 2023, Durant said he was on the Threads platform with a burner: "Come find me." More generally, he could never be accused of lacking the Poster's Mentality. But the default assumption is to not believe a pile of screenshots of unknown provenance.
At least that was the thinking until Wednesday, when Houston Chronicle Rockets reporter Varun Shankar did the much-needed dirty work and asked Durant about the supposed burner tweets.
Kevin Durant spoke at Rockets practice today. I asked about the burner allegations. Here's what he said. pic.twitter.com/VRLhYd5liX
— Varun Shankar (@ByVarunShankar) February 18, 2026
This was their exchange:
Shankar: Kevin, there was allegations over the All-Star break that you used a burner account to disparage current and former teammates. The handle for the burner was @gethigher77—is that your account? Did you send the messages?
Durant: I know you gotta ask these questions, but I'm not here to get into Twitter nonsense. I'm just here to focus on the season, keep it pushing. But I get you gotta ask those questions.
Shankar: Did you talk about it at all with your teammates?
Durant: My teammates know what it is. We've been locked in the whole season, we've been showing out great, had a great practice today, looking forward to the road trip.
Why would Durant not deny it outright? File this strange deflection under "reasons to believe."
The Rockets, who started hot, are 6-4 over their last 10 games and have settled to fourth in the Western Conference. Though they spent the early season smushing opponents on the offensive glass with colossal lineups, a season-ending ankle injury to Steven Adams ended that strategy. The resulting offense can look kludgy and unworkable; since the start of 2026, they rank 25th in the league in offensive rating.
The Rockets' postseason ambitions rely on the developing chemistry between their two high-usage players, Durant and Sengun. "Your franchise player can't shoot or defend," the alleged burner account wrote of the Turkish big. In the course of debating online with Sengun fans earlier this month, Durant promised that "[he and Sengun are] doing this together!! I promise Turkish fans."
