Source: Justin Ford / Getty / Derrick Rose
A Bulls broadcaster announced that Derrick Rose was hanging his adidas in the rafters. There’s only one problem: it was news to Rose and the rest of the NBA world.
A tweet from a parody of Adrian Wojnarowski’s account on X had many believing that Derrick Rose was finally calling it a career.
The post is still up and has over 77K likes,14K reposts, and 3.1 million views. It was even boosted by the social media platform Elon Musk, so it’s completely understandable why it fooled many people.
The post was so effective at fooling people that it got Chicago Bulls broadcasters, Stacey King and Adam Amin. During the first quarter of the Bulls versus Washington Wizards game, the two broadcasters brought up the fake report and discussed Rose’s importance to the team during his eight years with the Bulls franchise.
“It is out on the internet,” King said. “Adrian Wojnarowski reporting that Derrick Rose is retiring after 15 seasons.”
“How about that,” Amin responded. “Wow, think about the Bulls’ impact we’ve had already tonight. Dennis Rodman coming in, and now Derrick Rose after 15 seasons in the NBA. Of course, the number one pick by the Bulls in 2008.”
Oof.
A Brief History of Parody Accounts Fooling People
Parody accounts are nothing new; in fact, this is not the first time a fake news story has fooled folks this badly. Ballsack Sports, the very popular parody sports account, had ESPN reporting on a fake one-on-one game between former members of the Brooklyn Nets, Kyrie Irving and James Harden, with Irving calling Harden “washed.”
Stephen A. Smith, who prides himself on his NBA sources, even reported on the fake tweet. That wasn’t the only time, either.
ESPN had to issue an apology after running numerous segments around another Ballsack Sports hoax post claiming that Ja Morant said he would cook Michael Jordan in a one-on-one game.
Accounts like Ballsack Sports are not the problem, it’s the ones that are impersonating actual people and have blue checkmarks that are doing the most, and X needs to do a better job at regulating them.
However, people must also do their due diligence before jumping on these fake reports.
You can see reactions to the fake report in the gallery below.
