Caution- Avoid Fake Trade Rumors

From Flickr via Eugene Zemlyanskiy

The trade deadline is rapidly approaching us which means it’s that time of the year when trade rumors fly more rampant than ever before. But along with all of the excitement comes some absolute stupidity from certain trolls who find it fun to make up trade rumor and send the internet into frenzy.

This most recently happened with a certain Hoops-Nation post (which I refuse to link because of the sheer idiocy of it) in which the writer claimed that a source told him  the Bulls were discussing a massive blockbuster that would bring Carmelo Anthony over to Chicago. It was undoubtedly fake for many reasons, but mostly because: 1) it came from a random blogger and not one of the normal beat/national writers; 2) bloggers don’t get media access to Bulls games; 3) the Bulls are so tight-lipped it’s unlikely anyone would catch wind of that trade from Chicago’s end; 4) the trade made absolutely no sense.

However, despite the trade being an obvious fake it’s managed to find it’s way around the internet and my fellow BbtH writers, our friends at Blog-A-Bull, and myself are having to constantly debunk the speculation.

So here are some general tips for dealing with the trade deadline madness.

1. Always be suspicious of every rumor you read. Any infant with a keyboard can make up a rumor with “sources” and post it online trying to pass if off as true. Sources tell me that the Oklahoma City Thunder and Miami Heat have agreed to exchange Kevin Durant and Lebron James. See how easy it is?
2. Just because a “rumor” is on a major website doesn’t make it remotely true. A lot of organizations have contributor sites where anyone can write a fan post and submit it. While the parent site won’t promote the original post, people still catch wind of it and share it. Unfortunately it eventually becomes an annoying fake rumor.
3. Trust news from the major writers and the major writers only. That means Adrian Wojnarowski, Marc Spears, Marc Stein, and other guys writing for the major organizations/sites. In the case of Chicago writers to trust- Sean Highkin, Nick Friedell, KC Johnson, Aggrey Sam, Mike McGraw, etc.
4. For those of you on Twitter who see retweets of the rumors and trades that are tweeted out, ALWAYS CHECK TO SEE IF THE TWEET ACTUALLY CAME FROM THE WRITER AND NOT A FAKE ACCOUNT. There have been so many issues with fake Twitter accounts pretending to be the writer (more often than not Wojnarowski) that create hysteria for a little while. The general rule of thumb, if you don’t see the “verified” checkmark next to the name, don’t trust it.

For anything we missed, Blog-A-Bull has it covered with their warning for fake trade rumors. And while your at it we highly recommend you read this Daily Thunder post on fake rumors.

With all of that said, time to sit back and watch everything unfold.