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George Costanza



"If every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right." If only Dan Gilbert had a friend like Jerry Seinfeld. After deducing that every human instinct he has is the wrong one, George Costanza decides to do the opposite while mulling it over with pal Jerry.  Instead of tuna salad, he orders chicken salad. When spotting a beautiful woman, he walks right up to her and asks her out. He gets a job with the New York Yankees after telling owner George Steinbrenner all of the ways he has run the Yankees into the ground:

"A job with the New York Yankees! This has been the dream of my life ever since I was a child, and it's all happening because I'm completely ignoring every urge towards common sense and good judgement I've ever had. This is no longer just some crazy notion. Elaine, Jerry, this is my religion."

Here, I will examine all of the ways that Dan Gilbert is like George Costanza:

The summer of Dan!

 Inevitably, George gets fired from the Yankees. However, he gets a 3 month severance package from the team right as the summer is about to hit. George decides to take the summer off to do whatever the hell he wants and hilarity ensues. It does not end well for Georgie boy.

The Cavs lose the 2017 championship to the Warriors in 5 games rather decidedly. But for the first time since his return to Cleveland, LeBron James is already under contract for the next season. No free agency period, even if his first 2 years back, free agency was a mere formality. No matter what Dan does, LeBron is under contract. What does he do? Whatever he can to appease LeBron Whatever the hell he wants! Bye bye David Griffin, respected general manager and ally of LeBron. Kyrie wants a trade? Fuck him! Let's get a veteran that can help us win now a draft pick that will help us for the future. It does not go well. Jordan Clarkson ends up taking key shots in the Finals. I know, you're picturing his jump shot too. I'm sorry.

Believe it or not, Dan isn't at home...

 To avoid a breakup, George decides to never answer his phone again. He avoids going to places where he knows his girlfriend can find him. He changes his voicemail to- well, it's worth the watch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ria37d9mInY

Of course, as always, it eventually goes bad for George.

During the postseason, LeBron had this to say to Rachel Nichols regarding the Kyrie Irving trade. I'll repeat that. During the postseason.

"I felt it was bad for our franchise just to trade away our superstar point guard. Obviously, I wasn't a part of the communication.."

Ouch.

James also said that he tried telling the organization not to grant Irving's request. What leverage did he have? He still had 2 years left on his contract. At least bring him into training camp and let James try smoothing things over, he told them. Unfortunately, Dan Gilbert wasn't at home (believe it or not) so James had to leave his message at the beep. Where was he? Probably out scouting college point guards. 

Shrinkage!


Oh, the fragile male ego. George's is hurt after he goes swimming and feels he is "shortchanged" when Jerry's girlfriend walks in on him changing. By the way, he's not wrong. George spends the rest of the episode doing one terrible thing after another to try and make things even between the two.

Gilbert, a businessman and billionaire, has an ego the size of his bank account. Letting others get credit for his success shortchanged his very genius and intellect. I can picture Gilbert yelling into walls in his office watching as James was praised universally for single handedly ending Cleveland's 52 year title drought. Gilbert needed to shift the narrative and boy did he ever. Before the 2018 NBA Finals, he took to Twitter to praise the Cavs' mid-season trades for Clarkson, Larry Nance Jr., George Hill, and Rodney Hood as key contributing factors to getting there. The fuck? That'd be like saying Rachel Dawes was what made 'The Dark Knight' a great movie. Rachel sucked and I'm glad she got blown up. If only we could blow up George Hill's contract.

Just generally shitting all over every break they ever got.

 George is bald, stubby, often unemployed, lives with his parents, and still has some pretty fucking sexy girlfriends throughout the run of the show. How? And how the hell does he screw it up time after time after time? It's part of what makes Seinfeld great. But not our buddy Dan.

Gilbert has stumbled into luck time after time after time AFTER TIME. The 2011 Clippers pick had a 2.8% chance at being the #1 pick and they fucking got it. They took Kyrie Irving. Who went 2nd? Derrick Williams. They won it again in 2013 and managed to knock it out of the park with future hall of famer Anthony Bennett. Then, with a 1.7% chance in the 2014 lottery, THEY FUCKING DID IT AGAIN. Hitting a grand slam with earning the right to select Andrew Wiggins. No wonder Dan Gilbert was so keen on that 2018 Brooklyn pick. He was invincible!

Yet somehow, he still managed to steer the organization right into the fucking ground. Throwing in Tristan Thompson and Dion Waiters, the Cavs had 4 top 4 picks in 3 seasons (not including Wiggins)  and never even sniffed the 8 seed in a competitive dogfuckingshit eastern conference. But guess what! The best player in the world, who just happens to have been born 30 minutes from Gilbert's franchise, wanted to come home. If Gilbert wasn't already a billionaire he'd be a millionaire cuz he'd have hit the powerball at least 7 times with his luck.

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