Mark Cuban, the crazy-eyed muscleman who sits at the end of the Dallas Mavericks' bench sweating furiously and sometimes bounding onto the court to scream at officials and attempt to chest bump bemused players, is a very rich man. According to Forbes, only 458 human males with more money than Cuban exist.
But here's the thing, those other 458 dudes don't own the Dallas Mavericks and, thus, don't possess a team that just won its first NBA championship. And what do you do if your team just beat out the most overhyped team in the history of the game? Well, you pick up a bar tab that cost about the same amount as a modest home in your hometown. That's right, the multibillionaire (his money came from computers or dial-up modems or something else that seemed futuristic in 1999) picked up a $90,000 tab (with a $20,000 tip, which, all right, I'll admit is cool) all of which went toward a giant bottle of champagne that only a man with the strength of Thor, whoops, I mean Dirk Nowitzki, could lift. The bottle also appeared to be fully gilded (which means it was covered in gold, y'all) which probably added a few grand to that tab.
Then, the next day, Cuban announced that he was going to pay for an extravagant parade to honor the team. So, apparently, this is what you get when you win an NBA championship, at least if you're playing for a crazy/oddly benevolent owner like silly ol' Mark Cuban. You're showered with champagne, confetti or both.
But what do you get when your team doesn't win the championship? You don't get a golden bottle of champagne. If you're Lebron James, you're forced to gulp down a massive bottle of Everyone Thinks You're a Freakin Idiot Ale™. It doesn't cost $90,000 actually, you get paid millions of dollars to drink it, but it's served lukewarm and has an aftertaste reminiscent of cheap cat litter and Mountain Dew.
After chugging down the first 27 ounces of this abhorrent beverage, Lebron took some time to cleanse his mouth of the rotten aftertaste (it's like day-old Arbys meat soaked in nail polish remover) with some words for his critics at a postgame press conference.
"At the end of the day, all the people that was (sic) rooting on me to fail - at the end of the day they have to wake up tomorrow and have the same life that they had before they woke up today. They have the same personal problems they had today. I'm going to continue to live the way I want to live and continue to do the things that I want to do with me and my family and be happy with that," said Lebron.
So basically, if you don't speak Delusional Athletese (it's a rare dialogue), here's a translation of what Lebron said: "I just drank a ton of crappy Everyone Thinks You're a Freakin' Idiot Ale™ and it was awful, so I want you all to remember that you guys all have pathetic lives. Me? I'm still a millionaire and I didn't want to win anyway."
Something tells me Mark Cuban didn't care about this quote as he took a sip of champagne. The value of that sip? About $4,000.
