{"id":70709,"date":"2026-04-02T12:55:21","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T17:55:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/02\/washington-wizards-apologize-after-10k-april-fools-prank-draws-backlash\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T12:55:21","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T17:55:21","slug":"washington-wizards-apologize-after-10k-april-fools-prank-draws-backlash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/02\/washington-wizards-apologize-after-10k-april-fools-prank-draws-backlash\/","title":{"rendered":"Washington Wizards apologize after $10k April Fools\u2019 prank draws backlash"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>\n<p>Wizards apologize over half-time April Fools\u2019 prank<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Promotion that appeared to trick fan draws backlash<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Team issues statement saying stunt was pre-planned<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The Washington Wizards apologized on Thursday after an April Fools\u2019 Day in-game promotion during their loss to the Philadelphia 76ers prompted criticism on social media.<\/p>\n<p>During Wednesday night\u2019s game at Capital One Arena, a fan was brought on to the court for a blindfolded half-court shot promoted as being worth $10,000. The shot missed, but arena staff and performers reacted as if it had gone in and briefly presented the fan with a ceremonial check as part of what later was revealed to a scripted skit.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/sport\/2026\/apr\/02\/washington-wizards-april-fools-prank-apology-fan-halftime\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wizards apologize over half-time April Fools\u2019 prank Promotion that appeared to trick fan draws backlash Team issues statement saying stunt was pre-planned The Washington Wizards apologized on Thursday after an April Fools\u2019 Day in-game promotion during their loss to the Philadelphia 76ers prompted criticism on social media. During Wednesday night\u2019s game at Capital One Arena, &#8230; <a title=\"Washington Wizards apologize after $10k April Fools\u2019 prank draws backlash\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/02\/washington-wizards-apologize-after-10k-april-fools-prank-draws-backlash\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Washington Wizards apologize after $10k April Fools\u2019 prank draws backlash\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70709\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}