Fans and athletes react to ‘breaking’ fake trades circulating on April Fool’s Day
April 1 is quite possibly the worst day if you’re a fan of professional sports. It’s the day where pranksters take to social media and attempt to ruin the moods of April Fool’s Day victims by posting fake trades.
I mean, c’mon — real original.
While this day is dreaded by anyone with more than six working brain cells, this year seems especially toxic since fans are desperate to hear anything and everything revolving around the sports world and will eagerly chew on any information that’s tossed their way. Luckily for fans, most athletes and sports figures are here to save the day and manage to quickly squash these rumors with a virtual mallet.
Portland Trail Blazers point guard Damian Lillard isn’t just an eagle-eyed sniper on the court — he also appears to be one on Twitter too since he expertly took out a false rumor that he was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers.
Sorry, Lakers fans. As Arya Stark would say: “Not today.”
While the lure of playing alongside LeBron James and Anthony Davis might be tempting, the five-time All-Star appears happy in Portland and his loyalty for the team who drafted him back in 2012 runs deep.
And Dame wasn’t the only one who was targeted by Twitter trolls. ESPN’s “First Take” commentator Stephen A. Smith also knocked down one Twitter prankster who appears to be well-versed in the art of Photoshop.
Of course, some of the fake sports announcements came from the professionals themselves.
Take former professional NBA coach George Karl, who coached the Sacramento Kings in two seasons from 2014 to 2016. He never reached the playoffs with the Kings and would often clash with center DeMarcus Cousins, who was the then-face of the franchise. Karl wanted to get in a few April Fool’s Day laughs himself.
Almost every year, at least a handful of individuals are fooled by trades from fake Twitter accounts, and sometimes are even fooled by athletes themselves who just want to have a little bit of fun. Back in 2018, Denver Broncos linebacker Von Miller announced on his Instagram page that he had been traded to the Cleveland Browns.
Miller’s teammate at the time, Emmanuel Sanders, also joined in on the Instagram fun by claiming he was traded to the Washington Redskins. The official Denver Broncos Twitter account had to clear everything up in order to stop die-hard fans from crying themselves to sleep.
This day never fails to strike fear into the hearts of people everywhere, even if it just is momentarily, because then we’re forced to live with ourselves if we happen to fall for such obvious jokes. And that’s never fun.