Apparently, Larry Bird hasn't seen all of the hilarious "Lance Stephenson blowing in LeBron James' ear" memes floating around out there. You know, like the one of Stephenson blowing into a Nintendo cartridge or the one of Stephenson blowing into LeBron's ear with Ginuwine's "Pony" playing in that background. If he had seen them, he would probably see the humor in the situation. But last night, USA TODAY Sports reached out to the Pacers' team president via text message to ask him if he was bothered by Stephenson's tactic the other night. And he admitted that he was.
"Yes," he replied.
He wasn't alone, either. Pacers coach Frank Vogel also came out and said that what Stephenson did wasn't the right thing to do.
"Blowing in his face probably crosses the line," Vogel said. "That's not really who we are."
And USA TODAY Sports also talked to a handful of NBA general managers and executives to gauge their reactions to what Stephenson did. And the consensus was that Stephenson may have cost himself some money this offseason by blowing in LeBron's ear. Teams will reportedly be less likely to give the free agent-to-be a huge contract after seeing what he did.
Does that make Stephenson's shenanigan any less funny? NO. It was still great. But we wouldn't expect to see Stephenson blow in anyone's ear during Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals tonight. It's one thing for him to piss off his coach or the president of his team. But it's quite another for him to do something that could potentially cost him a lot of money down the line.
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[via USA TODAY Sports]
