The AI-generated clip's contents
A TikTok video circulating since July 20 falsely claims Oklahoma City Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said the team had planned to draft 18-year-old Filipino basketball player Rene Baterbonia ahead of the 2026-27 NBA season.
The clip overlays fabricated Tagalog text onto Daigneault’s real press conference footage. The audio, according to verification tools, is likely AI-generated, with a mismatch between Daigneault’s mouth movements and the words spoken.
“Over the past year, our scouts closely followed Rene Baterbonia and were impressed by his talent,” the video falsely claims Daigneault says. “Internally, we were preparing to select him in the 2026 to 2027 NBA draft and had even discussed a multi-year contract worth approximately 25 million US dollars.”
Baterbonia's tragic death
Baterbonia, an 18-year-old college basketball player at Ateneo De Manila University, died on June 8 during a team-building exercise in the eastern Philippines. He and teammate Divine Adili drowned during the activity.
His death and the subsequent investigation sparked a wave of social media activity, including the AI-generated video now being debunked. The clip gained over 869,000 views on TikTok.
Officials from Baterbonia’s hometown of Talacogon on Mindanao island issued a statement on July 30 urging people to stop soliciting funds for the family and to avoid posting visits to his grave for content.
Verification and source tracking
Reverse image searches traced the altered clip back to an unedited video of Daigneault’s press conference published on May 31. The original version makes no mention of Baterbonia.
The Verification Plugin, using the Hiya detection tool, flagged the audio in the altered clip as “very likely AI-generated.” A close look also shows Daigneault’s mouth does not match the fabricated dialogue. AFP previously debunked misinformation about Baterbonia and will continue to monitor and report on related content.