NBACentel has claimed yet another victim.
Minnesota Timberwolves television play-by-play announcer Michael Grady got duped by a fake report during Monday’s game against the Indiana Pacers. While discussing some of the happenings elsewhere in the NBA during the middle of play in the third quarter, Grady mentioned the recent postgame rant that Detroit Pistons head coach JB Bickerstaff went on after a loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder.
While on the air, Grady said that Bickerstaff had been fined $100,000 by the NBA over his rant. Unfortunately though, that information was entirely false as it had actually come from NBACentel, the notorious parody account on X that intentionally shares incorrect and outlandish info.
Grady’s remarks quickly went viral, and NBACentel soon claimed credit for another successful bamboozling.
The Timberwolves would also go on to lose in overtime 132-130 to a Pacers team that was without Tyrese Haliburton, Pascal Siakam, and Myles Turner. That added further insult to injury for Grady.
NBACentel’s victims are quickly growing in number. Last month, they successfully got FS1’s Colin Cowherd to pass along another one of their fake posts on the air.
As for Bickerstaff, he did indeed go on a theatrical rant after losing to the Thunder (video here) that he can probably be expecting a fine for. But in the past, the NBA has traditionally fined head coaches $25,000 for similar rants and $50,000 for rants accompanied with physical actions. Thus, the supposed $100,000 figure for Bickerstaff was nothing more than a Centel’ing.
