The explosion of social media has made its impact on sports — including the lingering issues of misinformation easily making its way around various platforms.
The NBA community on X has dealt with such misinformation first-hand. As the news-breaking industry of basketball has grown behind big-name reporters like Adrian Wojnarowski and Shams Charania, X accounts have done their best to fool some fans into believing false rumors.
Arguably no single account has done so successfully more than “TheNBACentel.” But on Wednesday, NBA fans were surprised to see one of their favorite parody accounts unavailable on X.
Here’s the latest on what happened to NBA Centel on X.
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What happened to NBA Centel?
Various accounts within the NBA community on X noticed Wednesday that the NBA Centel account had a “posts aren’t loading right now” message beneath it, often a sign that an account is banned or restricted in some fashion.
They finally got Centel
A tragic day in NBA Twitter history pic.twitter.com/dvNRg6YpeO
— NBA Memes (@NBAMemes) February 26, 2025
As the account had built a following of over 300,000 followers while spreading parody information about the NBA — with a designated “parody account” tag on X — it was no longer available as of Wednesday evening, causing speculation across the platform suggesting the NBA got involved to ban the account.
Adam Silver finally got the Madman pic.twitter.com/EblD4cbPma
— 🧙🏾♂️🧣 (@Precision80) February 26, 2025
Even Stephen A. Smith, who’s seen some of his colleagues at ESPN get “Centel’d” with false information from the account in the past, reacted to the account’s disappearance.
RIP Centel.
— Stephen A Smith (@stephenasmith) February 26, 2025
There hasn’t been a direct answer provided as to why the NBA Centel account was restricted. But Brandon Robinson, who lists himself in his X bio as the “insider that the players trust,” said he was told the account was not deactivated and it would be a “temporary restriction.”
NBA Centel’s account is not deactivated from use on X (the app formerly known as Twitter), I’m told.
Per a source with direct knowledge:
“It’s a temporary restriction.” pic.twitter.com/htfh4BkQIp
— 👑 Brandon “Scoop B” Robinson (@ScoopB) February 26, 2025
It remains to be seen if the popular NBA parody account will return, but for the time being, its posts are unavailable.
What is NBA Centel?
NBA Centel is a parody account on X that tweets intentionally false information about the NBA, often fooling fans and media members who cite the false reports as real sources.
The account has directly fashioned itself after another popular aggregate account in NBA communities, NBACentral. With similarities in profile picture and account name, it’s allowed NBACentel to trick fans into its made-up stories.
The NBA social media communities have seen plenty of fans and media members “Get Centel’d,” meaning they mistakenly start to cite the misinformation as a true source of news when it came from the parody account. While the official NBACentral account has nearly 2 million followers, the parody NBACentel account has over 300,000 followers.
