San Antonio Spurs: Guide to avoiding DeMar DeRozan fake news

Beware of an influx of fake news about the San Antonio Spurs' DeMar DeRozan

Saturday, I was scrolling through my Twitter feed as usual when the headline "Mavs to Target DeMar DeRozan in NBA Free Agency? Analysis" popped up. Seeing it was from Sports Illustrated, I was intrigued and gave it a click.

The article headline seems to indicate that there's evidence the Mavericks are targeting DeMar this summer, right? Well, not exactly. The piece is pure speculation, which is totally fine. I speculate all the time. But I can't help but feel like the headline makes it seem like the question is backed by something concrete, especially from a well-established site like Sports Illustrated.

Instead, the article cites NBAAnalysis.net not once, but twice as a way to tie in DeRozan to the Mavs. The first reference was to an article in which a writer predicted the landing spots of several free agents this summer.

The second is a link to a post called "3 Ideal landing spots for DeMar DeRozan." In that piece, the author calls DeRozan "not apart of the future plan" and implies the Spurs don't have money to pay him, which is a grammatical problem topped off with something untrue.

This leads me to my main tip in filtering out speculation for speculation's sake and actual, legitimate news about DeMar: consider the source. In going to the front page of NBAAnalysis.net, which also published the Simmons trade proposal I recently trashed, it's almost exclusively full of trade proposals featuring jersey-swapped free agents.

If that's your thing, go for it, and more power to them for finding what works for them. But when it starts to seep into more established outlets who also start using tricky headlines with them as a source, it starts to become a problem.

So what should you be looking for as more media outlets begin to resume coverage on the Spurs, DeMar, and the entire NBA free agency class?