Athletes are regularly told to be careful what they put on social media as the wrong thing could land them in hot water. For youngsters entering the NBA draft, it is also important to go through their history on social media and to clean up any posts that may come back to haunt them. That's the message that Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban immediately relayed to rookie Dennis Smith Jr. once they selected him with the number nine pick. Fans are very diligent on social media and they discovered an old and inappropriate tweet from 2012 that Smith posted. During the Mavs' Summer League match last night, Cuban spoke with ESPN and revealed that he made the young point guard clean up his Twitter account immediately. "One of the first things after we drafted Dennis, and I'm talking to him on the phone, I'm like, 'Dude, I went through your Twitter account. It's time to get on there and delete," Cuban said. "And so, he went through it. And to his credit, they were gone. He had a lot of stupid stuff on there."NBA stars are discovering just how quickly an old tweet can go viral, as Gordon Hayward found out recently prior to joining the Boston Celtics in free agency.  

Before finally making his decision to move to Boston, Hayward took days to come to the decision and it prompted fans to dig up this old tweet from the All-Star where he struggled to make a decision in the past. 

It was an innocent tweet by the 27-year-old in which he was asking for help in deciding which febreeze to go with, but NBA Twtiiter can be ruthless.

Other tweets from this year's draft class were also exposed, like Lonzo Ball mocking the Lakers for not making the playoffs in 2013 and Oklahoma City Thunder draft pick Terrance Ferguson trolling the fan base last May after the Golden State Warriors eliminated the team from the playoffs.

Cuban is all too aware of the negative publicity this could generate for the franchise and the player and has done well to nip this in the bud early and was not afraid to admit it. 

It shows a sign of maturity from Smith and he will no doubt be told about the Mavericks' social media policy and what they expect from him now that he's representing a large organisation in the NBA.