YouTuber Dawson Gurley has become known for his Klay Thompson impersonation, which he has been doing for at least seven years. He began gaining more traction in 2017 with an NBA Finals Prank video. But as of Tuesday the antics may be over, as “Fake Klay” claims to have been banned for life from the Chase Center.
In many videos, Gurley shows how he goes around town and makes people believe he is really the Golden State superstar. He signs autographs, takes photos with unsuspecting fans, and occasionally shows off his skills by playing one-on-one with random people. The YouTuber has even shared clips of him tricking staff members at the Warriors‘ home arena.
But the Warriors allegedly drew the line with Gurley’s antics after he walked past five layers of security guards, made it all the way to the court and shot around for about 10 minutes ahead of Game 5 of the NBA Finals series against the Boston Celtics.
Gurley began tweeting about the incident at 4:17 p.m. PT, about two hours before tipoff. He told his followers that he was in attendance but had just been banned from home games. About an hour later, the YouTuber shared what he claims is an official letter signed by Brian J. Herbert, Vice President of Security for the Golden State Warriors.
He also claimed that he spent $10,000 on tickets, which he said the organization will not be refunding.
The letter Gurley shows explains that actions can “be deemed to be an act of criminal trespass,” to which he replied by saying that this is technically not true because he talked to security and went through metal detectors. He also shared a screenshot of the definition of trespassing to try to help his argument.
Neither Chase Center or the Warriors organization have confirmed the legitimacy of the ban claim. It does seem like fans ran into him earlier that day, and there is also a video of what appears to be the shootaround session that allegedly got him in trouble.
It doesn’t sound like Fake Klay had a good night, but the real Klay Thompson went on to score 21 points on 50% shooting from the field to help his team win 104-94. Golden State now holds a 3-2 lead in the series.
Gurley is not currently doing interviews, but he did say there will be a new YouTube video that further explains the situation on Tuesday.
“I’m being contacted by a lot of news organizations to do interviews,” he wrote. “As of now I will not be doing any. Don’t want to make this a bigger deal than it is, the chase center has every right to ban me. I get it. No hard feelings. Had fun doing it.”
