Getty Image / Harry How
Los Angeles Lakers fans were given a bit of a scare today as they scrolled through their Twitter feeds.
As the team struggles and tries to figure out what exactly its future holds, a verified Twitter user decided to have some fun with the situation.
Earlier today, the account posed as LeBron James to announce that LeBron wanted the Lakers to trade him and insinuated that he wanted to head back to the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Verified Twitter account posing as LeBron James requests trade from Los Angeles Lakers
Here was the tweet. They're banking on the fact that their moderation team will catch up to every single account impersonating someone — even if that person is impersonating a no-name government official.
This is going to be a nightmare that'll be very funny before it's scary. pic.twitter.com/8jdi2muxlV
— Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) November 9, 2022
This is something that many have been concerned about with the ability to pay to be verified on Twitter. It also isn’t the only instance of this happening in recent days. Valerie Bertinelli impersonated Elon Musk on the platform a few days ago and a few celebrities have followed in her footsteps.
Nintendo even had an impersonator today, sending the world this nice message.
GOING GREAT pic.twitter.com/CxodYOVrOW
— Josh Russell (@josh_emerson) November 9, 2022
This issue had also already hit the sports world today. Another verified account impersonated Aroldis Chapman to let Yankees fans know that he planned to re-sign with the team despite the drama that unfolded ahead of the playoffs. That actually happening seems very unlikely.
Whaat makes this LeBron impersonation such a big deal is that many sports fans would believe it to be true if they saw it. The Lakers are a mess and LeBron likely doesn’t want to spend the end of his NBA career playing on a team that isn’t competitive. It wouldn’t be shocking for him to want to be traded right now.
Hopefully Twitter gets this fixed quickly before somebody starts impersonating Woj or Shams Charania and releasing fake bombshell NBA news.