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Were Heat Players Partying With The Mavericks After Losing The NBA Finals?

Another day, another NBA rumor that strains the limits of believability – only this one is, at the very least, being treated like it has some legs. The alleged incident of the moment: former Dallas Maverick Erick Dampier, along with unspecified other Heat teammates, joined the Mavericks for their post-title clubbing celebration.

“Balderdash,” you’ll think. “Maybe the NBA is buddy-buddy thanks to top players spending practically their entire childhoods around one another because of AAU ball, etc…but not that buddy-buddy. Not after the e thought at first, too, with Black Sports Online’s Robert Littal running down a good list of reasons to be skeptical:

Considering the media scrutiny the Heat have been under all year, are you telling me that any member of that squad would have been able to walk into that Club and not one person take a picture of them?

Not one person has ran to Media Take Out, Deadspin or TMZ looking for a couple of dollars?

No one person twitpic or sent a photo to Facebook?

That skepticism, though, apparently isn’t shared by Earl K. Sneed, who covers the Mavericks for mavs.com. After the (possible) news first broke on Miami’s 790 The Ticket, Sneed tweeted:

this is true. I confirm it! haha

The “haha” made us think he might have been joking, but neither basketball writer Sekou Smith nor ESPN’s Jemele Hill (at whom Sneed directed the tweet) seemed to take it that way. Nor did Pro Basketball Talk’s Kurt Helin. So this might have actually gone down, people.

And if it did, we’d be surprised. Sure, this wasn’t quite on the level of “Rashard Lewis and LeBron’s girlfriend” and maybe we shouldn’t be surprised by any instance of NBA players being extremely tight with one another at this point…but this was the Finals. This was it. This was for the title.

Yes, Dampier was with the Mavericks for six seasons, and we could understand him feeling a bit of happiness for his former teammates, and a little conflicted. But not like this. Again, we probably shouldn’t be shocked by reports like this one, but still…we hope this one’s bogus. Not just for the sake of competitive spirit…but for the sake of Dampier himself, if Pat Riley finds out it’s true.

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