NBA Finals: League uses social media to take fans courtside during finals in Oklahoma City

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The NBA's Jim Poorten stands on the basketball court of the Chesapeake Arena and uses an iPhone to snap a photo of the action on the court. He runs deep into the arena to connect to Wi-Fi and upload it as quickly as possible to one of the NBA's official Twitter accounts.

NBAs Jim Poorten, right, uses his iPhone to take a picture of Oklahoma Citys James Harden before a recent game. Poorten will post it within minutes to one of the NBAs social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. PHOTO BY NATHANIEL S. BUTLER / NBAE

Within three minutes, more than 50 people have reposted retweeted the photo to their own fans as they watch the NBA Finals action between the Miami Heat and Oklahoma City Thunder unfold on Twitter.

As Poorten bounces around the arena snapping photos and taking video with more access than most to the players, he wants to give the public the fly on the wall viewpoint, he said. As he shoots, he keeps in mind the stories and scenes in the arena that he would retell to his friends after the game one photo offering courtside includes rapper Lil Wayne and NBA super fan James Jimmy Goldstein.

Poorten's actions mimic the thousands of fans throughout the arena who are telling the NBA Finals story in their own ways to friends via their preferred social media sites. The NBA's extensive social media web, however, is in place to cater to an audience of millions of people around the world who want to feel as if they are in Oklahoma City and Miami for the NBA Finals, watching and analyzing the games courtside.

This operation involves cameras placed high in arena rafters, video teams and photographers on the ground, people as far away as New Jersey and New York monitoring trending topics and other social media activity and editing photos, former NBA players-turned-TV analysts keeping NBA TV vibrant with new shows, others updating stats for the NBA mobile applications and NBA.com and more. The teams come from NBA Digital, NBA Entertainment, league partner Turner Sports Digital and from throughout the NBA operation.

Photos from Game 2 of the NBA Finals between the Oklahoma City...

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NBA Finals: League uses social media to take fans courtside during finals in Oklahoma City

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