Stephen A. Smith & NBA Community Saddened by End of ‘Fallen Hero’ as Speculations Behind Popular Account’s Shutdown Rise

After Luka Doncic’s trade, the NBA community wasn’t prepared to handle any other shocks or surprises for a while. Unfortunately, February wasn’t done with the fans yet. People logging on to X today mourn the loss of a valuable entity. While it wasn’t a person, it was still close to a lot of fans who needed a dose of laughter or wanted to see someone else get pranked. After almost 2 years and 8 months of being operational, the consequences of NBACentel’s work have now finally caught up to it.

Basketball fans logging to X saw that the NBA Centel account had a ‘posts aren’t loading right now’ message beneath it. This is reportedly a sign that the account has been banned or restricted in some manner. Nevertheless, the update is being treated as a permanent closure of the parody account. As a result, tributes started pouring in quickly.

Renowned ESPN sportscaster Stephen A. Smith acknowledged the account’s shutdown by writing “RIP Centel.” In a moment of unity, the official X accounts of the Orlando Magic and the Sacramento Kings also mourned this loss. However, the Atlanta Hawks celebrated writing “NO MORE GETTING CENTEL’D”.

The account initially launched as a spoof of ‘NBA Central’. Soon, NBA Centel generated a huge fan following over its 2 years of operation. It became notorious for purposely inaccurately covering current events. For giving out updates that would sometimes be ludicrous, while quite believable, in other instances.

From claiming that Joel Embiid announced his retirement after a string of poor performances and injuries to implying that Shaquille O’Neal had made some NSFW remarks to Angel Reese (he hadn’t), it was quite easy for gullible people to fall into the traps of NBA Centel. If you had, you would carry the ‘tag’ of being Centel’d for days. And unsurprisingly, the majority of people who had come across the account would have been Centel’d at least once.

Well, there is no one to fool the NBA community now. After the account amassed a following of around 348,900 followers, no one would have expected this day to come. With its arrival also comes the beginning of the blame game, as people try to figure out the responsible entity on whom to pin NBA Centel’s shutdown.

Fans pass blame from one entity to another over NBA Centel’s fall: “made boss calls”

For one social media user, it was quite obvious where the blame should be pinned. This is why he wrote, “Nbacentral made boss calls to get Nba centel gone because he was making more money than him”.

If a spoof account gets taken down, one would certainly look at the account it was parodying. After all, the first request to block a fake profile on Instagram or other sites is from the main entity whose account was spoofed. NBA Central had no issues with the followers’ count, as seen since it currently holds 1.8 Million followers. Furthermore, if the main account wanted, they would have placed the request to shut down Centel a long time ago.

However, there is no denying that the longer the spoof account ran, the more it affected the credibility of the main one.

One individual joined others in placing the blame on a sole individual. He did so by writing “Elon really packed Centel”, while attaching a hilarious GIF. Ever since Elon Musk took control of X (then Twitter) back in October 2022, he has publicly backed the shutting down of parody and spoof accounts. That is, if they refuse to classify themselves as parody and spoof accounts. According to reports, NBA Centel refused to be tagged as a ‘parody account’ on X. Therefore, per the guidelines set by the SpaceX CEO, it is possible that it’s now gone.

One social media user implied that things weren’t as simple as just the account being shut down due to simply not adhering to guidelines. After all, he/she wrote “As soon as Centel says something about Nico Harrison … #FreeCentel”.

Mavericks GM Nico Harrison isn’t the most popular guy amongst NBA fans nowadays. He came under scrutiny earlier this month after the Mavs traded its star player Luka Doncic in exchange for Anthony Davis and Max Christie. To make matters worse, AD sustained an injury during his Mavs debut and was sidelined indefinitely. Many protested on the streets, and things got to a point where the GM had to reportedly receive extra security.

NBA Centel took advantage of this news and put out a spoof post that contained Harrison’s ‘remarks’ on the trade. It stated that the GM “misread the situation, miscalculated the return” because he did not have “post-nut clarity”. It would have been hilarious to everyone else but Harrison.

One individual wrote, “Too many people at ESPN was getting fooled by Centel. I know it was a matter of time smh, RIP you f**king legend”. This may have been a reference to how, even after more than 2 years of being active, NBA Centel was able to get to one of the biggest names in NBA journalism.

Before the highly anticipated Lakers-Mavericks game, Colin Cowherd and Rachel Nichols hosted a segment. During the same, Cowherd revealed, “I saw a story where they won’t let Luka jerseys in the building in Dallas”. As it turned out, that ‘story’ was put out by NBA Centel to fool some of its followers. Cowherd shouldn’t feel too bad, as even a fake ‘Zion Williamson at Wendy’s’ story got to Stephen A. Smith in January.

One social media user wrote, “Adam Silver finally got the Madman”. Well, even if the NBA commissioner allegedly had a hand, it is not as if other accounts will come up soon. In fact, since the ban, an ‘NBA Centel’ account on Instagram is already gaining traction.

Overall, the majority of reactions united in mourning the parody account, but were divided on who to blame.