NBA Twitter has seen an uptick in parody accounts spreading misinformation in the veil of satire. People are being fooled by the parody accounts every day. This problem is bigger on X as anyone can get a blue tick added to their account for a small price and make their fake account seem original. Even the NBA’s official handle fell victim to a Dalton Knecht parody account today.
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The 23-year-old Lakers rookie had a good preseason run with the Lakers and is now looking for his first regular season outburst. While he is slowly building a reputation in the league, Knecht already has several fan accounts and parody accounts under his name. One of those accounts tricked the NBA by posting about a fake interaction between Knecht and Kevin Durant.
The fake account posted an image of Knecht holding a signed Kevin Durant jersey with the caption, “A night I’ll never forget. Thank you @KDTrey5.” The parody account has over 16 thousand followers, which might have sold the deal to the NBA’s social media manager along with the blue tick.
The profile, however, clearly mentions, “PARODY. Fan account for the 6’6 SF for the Los Angeles Lakers,” in the bio. The NBA’s official handle must’ve not paid any attention to that.
Popular X personality, Rob Perez, posted a screenshot outlining how the NBA account got tricked by the fake account and retweeted the post. He wrote, “Main NBA account technically didnt get Centel’d but it’s as close as it gets.”
After the mistake went viral, X added a community note to the post, cautioning people that it was a fake account.
Main NBA account technically didnt get Centel’d but it’s as close as it gets. pic.twitter.com/rCUYK36eUy
— Rob Perez (@WorldWideWob) October 26, 2024
Knecht isn’t very active on social media. He only has 437 posts so far on his profile and has garnered over 29 thousand fans. His official X handle is, ‘DaltonKnecht3’. Even though the post was made by a fake account, the image of Knecht holding a signed KD jersey is real. The Lakers rookie received the signed jersey from his idol after his first regular season game against the Suns.
Dalton Knecht got the win against his idol, Kevin Durant, and then walked out of the arena with KD’s autographed jersey pic.twitter.com/iHE3i9S43L
— Dave McMenamin (@mcten) October 26, 2024
Knecht has stated that KD is his favorite player and he has looked up to him for a long time. So, defeating his idol’s team 123-116, and getting a signed jersey must’ve been a special feeling. During the preseason game against KD’s Suns, Knecht dropped a memorable 35-point performance. He also had seven rebounds and an assist in that game.
In the last few years, there has been an increase in the number of fake accounts on the platform. The most popular fake account ‘NBACentel’ has gained immense popularity over the last few months. Interestingly, KD is among the celebrities who have interacted with that account.
The slang ‘Centel’d’ is now being used as a verb on the platform to signify that someone got tricked into thinking that a parody account was a real source.
