By admin 
It is not uncommon for fraudsters to go to extraordinary lengths to deceive their victims. That was recently highlighted by the case of 35-year-old Daejon, who allegedly defrauded 26 women of $1.3 million through an elaborate investment and romance scheme while pretending to be an NFL player.
According to Robert Horry, however, that was not the first time he had seen an ordinary person try to use the perceived status of a professional athlete to deceive women.
Recalling one of his first shocks in the world of limelight, the seven-time NBA champ stressed how, during his early years with the Houston Rockets, he encountered a man who pretended to be a member of the team and used his height to convince women he was an NBA player.
And while the conning seemed to be going pretty smoothly, the scheme only came to Horry’s attention after one of his friends unknowingly encountered the man.
Robert Horry was left shocked
Being part of an NBA roster comes with plenty of perks, from media attention and fan recognition to the celebrity status that can accompany being a professional athlete.
According to Horry, one con man tried to exploit that perception during his early years in Houston, using his height to convince women he was a member of the Rockets.
Once Horry discovered what the man had been telling people, he was understandably shocked. The deception was particularly amusing to Horry because the fake NBA player was apparently enjoying some of the lifestyle benefits associated with the profession despite not actually being on the roster.
At the same time, Horry could not help but be impressed by the man’s audacity and creativity.
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“One of my good friends, she came to me and said, ‘I just met your teammate.’ I’m like, ‘Who?’ She like, ‘That tall guy.’ That motherf–er don’t play on my roster. Come to find out he had been using this… He got so many women because they thought he was a Rockets player. He had a nice little Mercedes outside,” Horry recalled on his podcast. “Just like he tall, he used that s–t every day.”
The story was especially ironic because Horry himself was not even driving a Mercedes at the time, while the man allegedly pretending to be an NBA player was using the image of professional-athlete wealth to strengthen his deception.
Fans pretending to be NBA players is a common theme
Horry’s story is not an isolated example of someone attempting to exploit the credibility that comes with claiming to be a professional athlete.
More recently, a man in Georgia allegedly posed as a professional basketball player to convince a hotel valet to hand over the key to a $90,000 BMW. By leaning on the credibility of a professional athlete, he gained enough trust to drive off with the vehicle, turning a simple deception about his identity into a vehicle-theft case.
Then, in another case, in September 2022, when Twitter introduced paid blue checkmarks, one account used LeBron’s picture to con NBA fans into believing that he was asking for a trade from the Los Angeles Lakers.
Professional athletes naturally attract attention because of their fame, wealth and larger than life personalities. And clearly, there has been a trend among fans of using loopholes to pretend to be those larger-than-life characters.
Related: Reggie Miller on why Robert Horry deserves Hall of Fame nod: “Seven championship rings? That’s hard to turn down
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This story was originally published September 13, 2026 at 11:47 PM.