Paige Bueckers Los Angeles Sparks trade hoax fools Elon Musk's X, formerly Twitter

As expected, Paige Bueckers went No. 1 in the 2025 WNBA Draft to the Dallas Wings. Despite what Trending News on X, formerly Twitter said, the UConn Huskies star was then not traded to the Los Angeles Sparks.

Back in November the Sparks hoped to land the No. 1 pick and the future rights to Bueckers in the WNBA Draft Lottery, but instead got the No. 2 overall pick, which they subsequently traded to the Seattle Storm in a blockbuster three-way deal that landed the Sparks Kelsey Plum from the Las Vegas Aces.

While it was a crazy day for Bueckers at the draft like showing off her fear of heights atop the Empire State Building, as well as one fire fit on the orange carpet followed by a dramatic wardrobe change into a second one for the draft itself, it wasn’t as crazy as the Wings trading a generational talent.

The NBACentel account — not to be confused with NBACentral account — on X is a parody account that spoofs on viral moments, and does it well. They put the fake news out there that Bueckers was traded to the Sparks after being drafted.

JUST IN: The Dallas Wings are trading Paige Bueckers to the Los Angeles Sparks.

😳 pic.twitter.com/d0BhtMKc1L
— NBACentel (@TheNBACentel) April 15, 2025

X’s Trending News picked up the viral post and its algorithm put it out there as if it were the truth. Have a look:

Fake Paige Bueckers news — Trending News/X

Wow. Now, it does say at the bottom that “This story is a summary of posts on X and may evolve over time. Grok can makes mistakes, verify its outputs.” Yes, that’s a big mistake. The fact it says “a summary” of posts can’t be true as this news was fake while the majority of Bueckers posts had no mention of such blasphemy. Elon Musk and the X team need to check out under the hood to see if Grok is working properly.

Rest easy, Wings fans, it was a hoax that fooled even AI. Bueckers is all Dallas.