Over the last 7 days, the search term “Kevin Durant trade Minnesota Timberwolves” generated more than 100,000 Google searches. Durant, however, is still a member of the Rockets.
The likely culprit of this search trend appears to be an article the Last Word On Sports (LWOS) website published on Saturday under the false headline “Blockbuster 4-Team Rockets Trade Sends Kevin Durant To Timberwolves, Kyrie Irving Leaves Dallas, Mavericks and Bulls Involved.” Yahoo Sports syndicated the piece, which received coverage across several news outlets debunking the trade report.
Later, the LWOS article headline was updated to state that the Durant trade was rumored. The website also issued a correction, saying: “LWOS published a title that upon re-reading, implied a ‘confirmed’ trade. While we cover trade rumors and speculation, publishing an article with a purposely misleading title is not something we endorse. We will be sure to rectify this in our editorial process.”
A Yahoo Sports spokesperson tells Front Office Sports that the organization does not edit content that it syndicates from other websites, and that the LWOS article was not manually programmed to appear on Yahoo Sports. They also said that Yahoo Sports was choosing to keep the article up because LWOS corrected its headline to specify that Durant’s trade was “rumored.” (FOS is one of hundreds of partners whose stories get syndicated on Yahoo).
