Did a real sports journalist named "Marc Jacobs" report that Russell Westbrook was signing with Hapoel Tel Aviv in Israel? No, that's not true: There was no evidence that Westbrook, a 37-year-old NBA free agent, had signed with the Israeli professional team as of Aug. 12, 2026. The claim came from a fake sports reporter on a parody account, citing a story that does not exist.
The claim appeared in a post and image (archived here) by the @MJacobsLF account on X on Aug. 9, 2026. It read:
REPORT: Russell #Westbrook and Hapoel Tel Aviv reportedly have mutual interest, with talks between the two sides continuing to expand. The former MVP is seriously considering a move overseas this season. Per @TheAthletic
A deal would mark the first time Westbrook plays professionally outside the NBA.
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Image source: post by @MJacobsLF on X.)
The Marc Jacobs X profile describes the persona as a "Senior NBA Writer & Reporter for @LakerFilm." Jacobs is not a mainstream, credentialed journalist and has fewer than 4,300 followers as of Aug. 12, 2026. The @LakerFilm account (archived here) had fewer than 40 followers as of Aug. 12, 2026, and had the display name "FOLLOW MJacobsLF."
News searches
Lead Stories searched Google News (archived here) and Yahoo News (archived here) and did not find any matching reports from credible news outlets reporting that Westbrook was in talks with Hapoel Tel Aviv. The searches used the terms "Russell Westbrook," "Hapoel Tel Aviv," and "Marc Jacobs."
However, several publications picked up the claim as legitimate reporting, including the Jerusalem Post (archived here), which later removed the story (archived here) from its website.
The post on X also falsely cited The Athletic (@TheAthletic) to substantiate its claim about Westbrook. The Athletic, owned by The New York Times Company, did not report the story (archived here). A Google Advanced Search of the site (archived here) by Lead Stories produced the same results.
Image analysis
Lead Stories ran the image of Westbrook in the post through Google Gemini (archived here), Google's AI assistant. The tool concluded that the image has a Google SynthID:
This image has been identified as having been edited or generated with Google AI.
The image includes the Gemini icon in the lower right corner. It is circled in yellow below:
(Image source: post by @MJacobsLF on X.)
