CNN
—
It’s rare that a sports parody account on social media has much resonance with professional athletes. But “NBA Centel” became so popular that even NBA teams and superstars were aware of it.
On Wednesday, the popular parody account – famous for its humorous, fake viral posts on X, formerly known as Twitter – appeared to go offline, with users trying to view the account met with an error message saying: “TheNBACentel hasn’t posted, when they do, their posts will show up here.”
While it is unclear what has happened to the account, “NBA Centel” posted on Instagram, implying that they were banned from X. CNN has reached out to “NBA Centel” and X regarding the status of the account.
One of the most popular sports accounts on the platform, the apparent ban was a surprise to many, even to the point of becoming one of the top trending topics on X and prompting many teams across the NBA to take notice.
The Sacramento Kings, Houston Rockets, Detroit Pistons, Los Angeles Clippers, Miami Heat, Phoenix Suns, Orlando Magic, Utah Jazz and Atlanta Hawks all posted on X referencing NBA Centel’s disappearance.
The Pistons, Kings, Heat and Clippers all dedicated their Wednesday victories to the account.
ESPN sports commentator Stephen A. Smith even expressed his commiserations, saying: “RIP Centel.”
So how did this parody account – which, at the time of writing, has over 360,000 followers – become such a sensation for fans, teams and players alike?
History of a ‘GOAT’ account
On social media, there is no shortage of sports parody accounts. But from the beginning, Centel was different.
The origin of its name was a play on the NBA news aggregation account “NBA Central” and each of its posts would mimic an official report. Yet, as it says in Centel’s bio, all of the posts are parody.
Speaking to Front Office Sports last year, the person behind Centel, who was not named in the report, said they were inspired to set up the account after seeing other sports parody profiles.
“(Other parody accounts) encouraged me to give it a try and have fun with it,” they said. “I didn’t expect it to gain as much traction as it did. And yeah, it definitely evolved from the beginning.”
Such is the likeness to the “NBA Central” account, it led many athletes and sports commentators to reply in earnest, believing Centel’s false tweets to be real.
As such, it gave rise to a new addition in the NBA vernacular: “Getting centel’d.”
The phrase shot to prominence last year when Phoenix Suns superstar Kevin Durant used it to hit back at an X user who had a negative reply to one of Centel’s posts falsely talking about the two-time NBA champion’s private life. A screenshot of Durant’s post is still the image used for Centel’s banner on X.
Durant’s post – which has almost 160,000 likes – even led to the official Merriam-Webster Dictionary X account humorously calling the word “centel’d” a verb.
Durant later said that he looks in the comments of Centel’s posts “just to truly see how many dummies come online thinking that they have high IQ.”
Many other NBA stars have fallen foul of being “centel’d.”
Heat star Tyler Herro admitted to being fooled earlier this month, while a post from the account instigated a war of words between Kevin Garnett and Draymond Green.
The phenomenon of being “centel’d” became a common part of the NBA landscape but Wednesday’s disappearance seems to have brought an end – temporarily or permanently – to that.
American actor and son of rapper Ice Cube, O’Shea Jackson Jr., paid tribute to Centel on X.
“Today we lost a generational talent. The word GOAT is thrown around so much nowadays that it loses its significance,” Jackson Jr. said. “Without a shadow of a doubt, Centel you were the GOAT.
“Hail fellow well met. Goodnight sweet prince. A first ballot Twitter hall of famer.”