On Sunday, September 3, a video purportedly showing the arrest of Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green went viral on X (formerly Twitter).
Draymond Green reportedly “backhanded” a bartender who disrespected LeBron James. The statement was intended to mock Green’s close friendship with the NBA superstar.
However, the report was untrue and came from a parody account posing as a popular NBA news account.
“The Hoop Central” is the account that posted the video, which does not show Green’s face and was filmed from a distance. The account is very similar to “The Hoops Central,” which has 1.2 million followers on the popular social media platform.
Still, when browsing social media, it’s easy to be fooled due to how similar the impersonation accounts are. This resulted in the viral video being viewed as real news by some.
To reiterate, Draymond Green has not been arrested and the footage in the video is of others being detained by police.
Copycat accounts are becoming increasingly common on social media, especially after the launch of “X Premium” and “Meta Premium.” Both offer users the opportunity to pay a subscription fee to verify their account, as well as additional benefits.
Draymond Green was involved in a nasty incident last summer when he assaulted then-teammate Jordan Poole during a team practice. This may be why so many NBA fans have been fooled by false reports.
Warriors owner reveals why Jordan Poole was traded following Draymond Green incident
Throughout the 2022-23 NBA season, the Golden State Warriors have seemingly struggled to get over the incident between Draymond Green and Jordan Poole. As a result, they failed to defend the 2022 championship and lost to the Los Angeles Lakers in the second round of the playoffs.
Warriors owner Joe Lacob recently appeared on “The TK Show” with The Athletic’s Tim Kawakami. Lacob explained how Poole became an “anomaly” this summer, which led to his trade to the Washington Wizards.
“I think it’s fair to say there was a level of concern about the future and whether this was going to be successful. I honestly thought it was going to be successful and it could have been,” Lacob told Kawakami.
“But I think it’s fair to say that in order to work as a team next year, in order to make the numbers work and all that, someone was probably going to be the odd one out. It turned out — and that wasn’t the plan — that was Jordan.”
Green may be known for being tough on his teammates and has a history of feuding with NBA players. However, the veteran striker is unlikely to attack someone randomly on the street.
With that said, we can now file this viral video as “never happened” and continue to enjoy the offseason before training camp begins.
editor
Anantajith Raghuraman