Mavs Win Championship; Party

The Mavericks finally won the 'chip over the weekend, outpimping everybody.


The Mavs were a better-built team, they are better coached and their best player(s) played very well. Moreover, their owner shut his trap and fans (for the most part) did not complain about the officiating of the game.

After game 6, they partied their asses off, which I think we can all respect. They went to LIV, (where LeBron's mom was arrested a couple of months ago) and owner Mark Cuban spent $300,000 (but the stingy motherfucker only left a 7% tip).

Below are some of my favorite pictures from the party.

Dirk takes $80,000 bottle of Ace straight to the dome. No flutes for the finals MVP.


Your dad was at the party. He's the bald one with the tucked-in shirt.
I'm also curious as to whether or not Ian Mahinmi had to pay for his own drinks. I would have made him buy a round of shots for every airball he had in the finals (that's four rounds of shots, people).

And of course, when someone loses $2 million by betting against you, you might as well be magnanimous and let him drink off your tab.


On the way home...


Then the Mavs did something pretty cool that we can actually relate to: they took the trophy to a local dive bar that has a reputation for serving extremely strong drinks and throwing my friend out when he pukes on himself. It is also the same place Dirk and Nash went on their well-documented excursion.


Brian Cardinal photobomb!


And of course, expelling the booze (note: this isn't at the Loon).


Unfortunately, nobody remembered to tell Deshawn Stevenson that you're supposed to stop drinking after a spell. He was arrested in Irving for public intoxication. Something so sad about seeing Abraham Lincoln in a mug shot.


One thing's for certain. The Mavs had at least one angel on their side.

It's a shame the NBA has been so great lately.

Because they're about to trash everything about it with a players' strike in the coming offseason. Silver lining? Plenty more time for scenes like this:




Ordinarily, I hate Bill Simmons, but he put together a fantastic little 10,000 word manifesto on why the current CBA sucks for everyone but role players and provides constructive criticism on how it could be fixed.

The only problem is this: it depends on a collective bargaining agreement between players and owners. So the athletes want protection in long-term deals, high league minimums, and they'd like compensation to scale to league tenure as much if not moreso than talent and productivity. Pop quiz: how much money will Jason Kapono earn this year? Remember him? Over $6MM. Check this out.

• The Sixers have played 56 games this year. Kapono has played in 36.
• He's third on the depth chart behind Rodney Carney at SF.
• He's making $2,292,605.17 per point scored per game that Philly plays.
• This isn't shocking news.

That last bullet point? Hardest part to believe. Think of it this way. Larry Hughes is getting paid $13MM this year. He's got a broken finger and is toast for the rest of the season. This shit is so complicated that a team traded for that. His only real value is his expiring contract. And while I'm no expert, that makes no linear, logical sense. Meanwhile, it took Kevin McHale roughly 40 years to get fired from Minnesota. Mike Dunleavy oversaw 600 losses at a 40% win rate. WHO WOULD PAY FOR THAT SERVICE?

The answer probably lies in the fact that team owners are irrational animals. They overpay for physiologically depreciating assets based on past performance. This is how Ken Griffey Jr. made a wheelbarrow full of cash while hurt for God knows what percentage of his time in Cincy. It's how Mike Hampton stole more than $10MM per year for what seemed like a decade on the injured list after one or two decent seasons in Colorado.

The difference is that baseball doesn't have a salary cap; basketball does. Or did. Whatever it is or was, it won't be this time next year. But owners will still be rich, players will still be paid like thieves, and the only people I feel bad for are season ticket holders and fans left weathering the players strike/lockout or whatever winds up going down.

This almost killed pro hockey and it took the Homerun Race Brought to you by Balco to make us forget the cataclysm of the players' strike in baseball. Is basketball immune? Thoughts?

Rick Barnes: Highest Paid Moron in NCAA BB

Seems like a nice guy and all, which is good. He'd better be. He's a horrible basketball coach. Please observe:

TJ Ford (2003, 1st Rd, 8th Pick)

LaMarcus Aldridge (2006, 1stRd, 2nd Pick)

Kevin Durant (2007, 1stRd, 2nd Pick)

DJ Augustine (2008, 1st Rd, 9th Pick)

Damion James (Proj 2010 13th Pick)*

Avery Bradley (Proj 2010 15th Pick)*

Dexter Pitman (Proj 2010 27th Pick)*

Dogus Balbay (Proj 2010 Pasha of Turkish BB)*

WHAT MORE DO YOU NEED RICK BARNES? WHY ARE YOU ALWAYS FAILING? It's like every year the guy buys a new Ferrari but runs it into a lake before he can get it home from the dealer. Last night's game was pretty tough to watch, mostly because I wanted Kansas to lose. How is Texas this bad? What has he done?

TOURNEY:

2003: 1 seed, lost to 3 seed

2004: 3 seed, lost to 7 seed

2005: 8 seed, lost to 9 seed

2006: 2 seed, lost to 4 seed

2007: 4 seed, lost to 5 seed

2008: 2 seed, lost to 1 seed

2009: 7 seed, lost to 2 seed

Now, there's no shame in losing to Carmelo in '03, or to Big Baby/Tyrus Thomas/Temple etc in '06, or to DRose and CDR in '09. But with all that talent, plus an AJ Abrams, PJ Tucker, Boobie Gibson here and there, you'd have to ask yourself whether or not an elite program would be satisfied with 1 final four over all of that time.

And I love him. Why? Because he's the epitome of what is still great about college ball: it takes more than recruiting to win.

* From nbadraft.net; I have no idea if they know what they're talking about.