Other than that, Mr. Randall, how are things going in Cleveland?
Damarious Randall, the free safety acquired by the Browns in a trade with the Packers in March, got off on the wrong foot with residents of The Land, who do not take kindly to criticism of any of their sports teams. It’s quaint, really, and it just may cost Randall a bundle of money.
Shortly before midnight Monday night, Randall was feeling chesty about the Golden State Warriors’ advance to the NBA Finals, where they’ll play the Cleveland Cavaliers. He even laughed at Tyrod Taylor rooting for the Cavs now.
So chesty was he, in fact, that he allowed his thumbs to tweet a promise to “buy everyone who retweets this a jersey …”
Well, who can’t use a fresh jersey? Evidently everybody because his little comment has been retweeted over 153,000 times (as of 1:30 p.m. Eastern; the number keeps growing and growing). Given that the Cavs’ website has authentic jerseys going for a max of $200 a pop, that means he’d be out something just north of $30 million. Gulp. Of course, there is a very good chance all this works out in the end for the Pensacola, Fla., native, who has a four-year, $7.9 million contract with the Browns. He does have Vegas on his side.
The city’s Westgate sportsbook has the Cavs a +650 money line underdogs (bet $100 to win $650) against the Warriors this year, the longest odds a James team has faced in his nine NBA Finals appearances. The previous high was his first Finals trip in 2007, when James’s Cavaliers were +350 underdogs against the San Antonio Spurs, who swept Cleveland in four games. In his nine trips to the NBA Finals, James’s teams have opened as favorites only twice: The Miami Heat was a -220 favorite to win in 2013, and it did, while Miami entered the 2011 Finals as a -175 favorite, losing to the Dallas Mavericks in six games.
Overall, James’s teams are 3-5 in the NBA Finals and last year the Cavs lost to the Warriors in five games.
The Warriors are listed as -1000 money line favorites to beat the Cavs in their fourth straight Finals meeting (bet $1,000 to win $100), which equates to an implied probability of around 91 percent, according to The Post’s Matt Bonesteel. And, to top it off, Golden State is the biggest NBA Finals favorite in at least the last 16 years, per historical data compiled by SportsOddsHistory.com.
But what if the Cavs can pull this off? Randall put an end to one user’s suggestion that there was “zero chance he delivers” with a quick, “100% chance” reply five minutes later.
Come September, he promises all this will be forgotten.
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