If Dan Gilbert was half as good at running an NBA franchise as he is at embarrassing himself on the internet, the Curse of Chief Wahoo really wouldn’t stand a chance. When we last left the Cavaliers owner, he’d taken a thinly-veiled shot at LeBron James with a reference to “rich ‘A-Holes’” on Twitter just after LeBron had set the sports-news cycle ablaze with a vague truism about racism. Now Gilbert’s denying that the reference had anything to do with LeBron, and jabbing at yours truly as well. Here’s @cavsdan on Twitter at around 2:00 this morning:
Amazing some cats w/”cyber-courage” think twts of favorite quotes have something to do with specific people. New level of silliness reached.
New level of silliness reached, for sure. It’s one thing for an NBA owner to call a former player an A-Hole on Twitter. It’s another to lie about it and lash out at critics in the process.
Of course it’s true that, technically, I’m *assuming* that Gilbert meant to refer to LeBron with his A-Hole tweet. The point here is that it’s completely unreasonable to assume anything but that Gilbert meant to refer to LeBron with his tweet. Gilbert, for better or worse (as it is now, definitely worse), is forever significantly linked with LeBron. We know by Gilbert’s own words that he believes he’s been betrayed by LeBron. Also by his own words, Gilbert has set up a dichotomy whereby LeBron’s success is his failure, and LeBron’s failure is his success. So when Gilbert decides that a time when the sports-news cycle is whipped into a lather by recent comments from LeBron is also a time for him to start dropping wisdom on Twitter about “rich A-holes,” it just doesn’t make any sense at all to assume that Gilbert doesn’t want us to think about LeBron here.
So when Gilbert self-servingly tries to tell us that the quote had nothing to do with LeBron, we have to assume that he’s lying. Any other assumption requires us to ignore every relevant real-world fact available to us, which only makes for bad assumptions, and of course, a hindrance to evolution. Which is fine with Gilbert, apparently, as long as he keeps making money.
All more proof that the “Dan Gilbert and ‘real Clevelanders’ against ‘A-Hole’ LeBron” dichotomy is the worst thing going in sports. Cleveland’s favorite owner. Absolutely amazing.
Almost as amazing, Gilbert’s reference to “cyber-courage.” Dan, if you want to meet in person to discuss this or anything else, I’m really easy to get a hold of. In the meantime, sane folks will assume that “cyber-courage” refers to bosses who call a former employee an “A-Hole” on Twitter after failing to have said anything of the sort to that former employee during the seven years that he worked for the employer when it might have been useful. And also to passive-agressive tweeting at critics instead of addressing them directly.
Anyway, don’t think any of this means I’m not touched that Gilbert was thinking of me at 2AM.
(UPDATE: No matter how big of an A-Hole LeBron might be, Dan Gilbert will still sell kids life-sized pictures of him at full price.)
