Don’t believe everything you read on the internet. That is especially true on Twitter, where “parody accounts” and other purveyors of false information run amok.
On Wednesday morning, one of these accounts posted a pretty convincing graphic, showing a quote attributed to NBA great Kevin Garnett. It is, of course, very fake.
“Everybody’s just running from the grind nowadays, teaming up with each other,” the fake quote reads. “Back in my day, we did it the hard way! If you can’t win alone, you're considered a bum. Period.”
Garnett, of course, won his first and only NBA title in 2008, after he was traded to the Celtics, teaming up with Paul Pierce and Ray Allen, who was also acquired in a trade. While it’s a quote that one can imagine the gruff Garnett giving, it’d be a pretty hypocritical one for him to make.
The quote has circulated around the social media platform, and even got picked up by Twitter’s trending topics in the app’s “Explore” tab, under the topic “Ray Allen.”
“People react to Kevin Garnett’s comments about being able to ‘win alone’ instead of ‘teaming up with each other,’ with many noting that the former NBA forward played alongside Ray Allen and Paul Pierce on the Boston Celtics when earning his championship ring,” the trending section said.
Evidently, a lot of people didn’t notice that “Robert Buchanan,” a “senior journalist and NBA insider” has just 850 followers and lists himself as a parody account in his bio.
There is a lesson to be learned here: Always check your news sources.
