Cavs Owner Dan Gilbert Fined $100K For LeBron Comments

Dan Gilbert Refuses Cavs Fans Offer To Pay $100K Fine

This is nice of Dan Gilbert. In yet another open letter to the fans of the Cleveland Cavaliers, Gilbert announced that while Cavaliers fans have offered to pay his $100,000 NBA fine (after his scathing letter regarding LeBron James landed him in hot water), Gilbert can pay it himself.

As he wrote (in Comic Sans, natch):

How kind of the Cavaliers billionaire owner not to accept the donations of Ohioans in a struggling economy to pay a fine that he earned with a completely self-indulgent, over-the-top, heat-of-the-moment rant toward a 25 year-old basketball player.

As he wrote of LeBron James, "Some people think they should go to heaven but NOT have to die to get there." Now, ask yourself: doesn't Dan Gilbert deserve heaven after this?

No? Because this is a press release where he talks of completely anonymous donation offers that may not even exist? Designed solely to curry favor with fans, making a point to prove Gilbert's sentiments were NOT completely extreme and out of bounds? That's what this is?

Oh.

That's pretty classless then.

Cavs Owner Dan Gilbert Fined $100K For LeBron Comments

The vitriol-filled and Comic Sans-fonted letter that Cavs owner Dan Gilbert posted on the team website following LeBron James announcement that he would sign with the Heat has generated not only a firestorm of controversy, but now also a sizable fine from commissioner David Stern.

Stern said on Monday in Las Vegas where the NBA owners are meeting that Gilbert is being fined $100,000 for posting the letter, which can still be accessed on the Cavaliers official website. Gilbert was also being punished for comments made in phone interview with Associated Press reporters in which he said that LeBron had quit in the playoffs the previous two years.

"He was completely correct in expressing his disappointment,'' Stern said, adding that Gilbert's statement and the sentiments he expressed in a follow-up interview with the AP was "a little bit extreme.''