Inside The Heat

Even Without NBACentel, Pat Riley, Miami Heat Will Remain Subject Of Parody Reports

Shandel Richardson|
Aug 12, 2023; Springfield, MA, USA; Miami Heat president Pat Riley walks the red carpet at the 2023 Basketball Hall of Fame induction ceremony at Symphony Hall. Mandatory Credit: Eric Canha-Imagn Images
Aug 12, 2023; Springfield, MA, USA; Miami Heat president Pat Riley walks the red carpet at the 2023 Basketball Hall of Fame induction ceremony at Symphony Hall. Mandatory Credit: Eric Canha-Imagn Images | Eric Canha-Imagn Images

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Miami Heat

Among the biggest NBA stories this week had nothing to do with the league.

It was about the demise of NBACentel, the popular satire social media page that rose to fame on Twitter. This week, fans were disappointed to find the account had all of its posts taken down. It likely was a result of Elon Musk, who changed the name to X a few years back.

NBACentel, which is similar to NBACentral, would often fool fans, players and teams into thinking their "reports" were real.

Even without NBACentel, which had hundreds of thousands of followers, copycats wasted little time trying to duplicate that account's success. On Wednesday, a social media user surfaced under the handle NbaCentel reported Pat Riley was retiring from the Miami Heat.

The post read: "BREAKING: Miami Heat General manager and Owner Pat Riley has announced his retirement.

“man this (bleep) ain’t what it used to be, (bleeps) crying over cookies while I’m crying trying to get jimmy (Butler) back.”

The parody was apparently a shot at Dwyane Wade's recent comments about Riley. Wade said Riley played a role in LeBron James leaving the Heat in 2014 to return to the Cleveland Cavaliers.

So while the king of disinformation is gone, these reports are now here to stay. They will just have to find new ways of releasing them, which I'm sure they will.

Shandel Richardson is the publisher of Miami Heat On SI. He can be reached at shandelrich@gmail.com

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Shandel Richardson
SHANDEL RICHARDSON

Shandel has covered the NBA since 2010, with previous stops at The Athletic and South Florida Sun-Sentinel. He has covered six NBA Finals, one Super Bowl, the NCAA basketball tournament. He has also been a beat writer for the Miami Hurricanes and contributed on every major beat in South Florida since 2003, including the Miami Dolphins and Miami Marlins. He can also be read in the Sportsbook Review for gambling coverage from around the NBA. A native of Bloomington, Illinois, Shandel attended Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. He's also worked for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Kansas City Star. TWITTER: @ShandelRich EMAIL: shandelrich@gmail.com You can subscribe to our YouTube channel here Follow all of our Miami Heat coverage on Facebook here