Fred VanVleet’s expletive-laden remarks cost him $30,000 and put him in a special group

Fred VanVleet is now immortal. Hitting nearly every 3-pointer you attempt for two playoff rounds and winning a championship is great. However, only Toronto Raptors’ fans and non-causal NBA watchers remember that. The narrative in the 2019 NBA Finals was Kevin Durant’s injury and Kawhi Leonard playing like a superstar on the national stage.

On Wednesday night, VanVleet carved his own space. He went on a vulgar rant about officiating — specifically Ben Taylor —that resulted in a $30,000 fine. A fine that I would gladly start a Go Fund Me page to raise money to pay for, if I believed in giving money to people who make more than I do.

Instead, I will give him a standing ovation and induct him into the Sports Press Conference Hall of Fame I just made up.

Take a look at some of the other members.

He had every reason to be upset. His 1-4 Arizona Cardinals were up 20-0 against the undefeated Chicago Bears on Monday Night Football. Maybe this is the game that could’ve turned the Cardinals’ season around. Instead, they gave up a three-score lead during a game in which the Bears’ starting quarterback completed 38 percent of his passes and turned the ball over six times.

Green’s team failed him that night. His record against the Bears when he coached the Minnesota Vikings was very good, but that night in 2006 probably made him forget every one of those previous victories.

“The Bears are who we thought they were!” he exclaimed.

A quarterback’s best friend on the field and potentially his worst enemy in street clothes. After wearing out his welcome in San Francisco and Philadelphia, Jerry Jones brought one of the best players in NFL history to the Dallas Cowboys.

Terrell Owens was great from the start in Dallas, and in 2007 the Cowboys held the top seed in the NFC. They lost at home to the eventual champion New York Giants and Tony Romo caught a lot of grief for going on vacation to Cabo with then-girlfriend Jessica Simpson. While we couldn’t see behind those aviator shades, we did get to see Owens publicly stand up for a QB.

“That’s my quarterback!” Owens said through tears.

I badly want Patrick Mahomes to go to Cabo during a Kansas City Chiefs playoff bye week, and then Romo has to call their divisional game.

No one has ever consistently sold a fight with his words like Ali. As quick as he was on his feet in the ring, his mind was battle-rapper quick when in front of a microphone. Sonny Liston had just annihilated one of the greatest heavyweights of all time — Floyd Patterson — twice by first-round knockout. Liston was one of the most physically imposing people in the world, but Ali peppered him with verbal jabs to set him up for the real ones during the fight.

At 22 years old, Ali told Liston in front of the world he was so unafraid that he would come to his house looking for him at 2 a.m. Ali was an 8-1 underdog going into this fight, but his youth, the gambling odds, even Liston rubbing something in his eyes was not going to hold him back. 

This press conference turned out to be the best kind of fight promotion. Verbal sparring is wonderful, but combat sports allow us to indulge in our ugly desire to watch human beings fight each other.

Pro fights are significantly more fun when the combatants have real animosity toward one another, and there was no love between Jones and Cormier. Jones saying that he beat Cormier after doing cocaine for a weekend was hilarious, but nothing tops that brawl prior to UFC 187.

Jones recently won the UFC Heavyweight Championship.

Chaney was not a happy camper after Temple lost in 1994 to Calipari and his rising Atlantic 10 power, UMass. The Minutemen pulled out this game by a single point. Calipari was talking to the media when Chaney came barging into that press conference.

He accused Calipari of mouthing off to an official, but for the most part, Chaney was just rambling. That rambling turned into locked-in focus real quick when Calipari yelled back at him, “wait a goddamn second.”

At that point in the video is when Chaney screams that legendary line “I’ll kill you.” He may have been 17 years the senior in this matchup, but judging from the footage it is reasonable to believe that Chaney would have put hands around Calipari’s throat if security had been a second slower to react.

Stan was colder than that Diet Pepsi can he casually sipped while confirming to the media that Howard wanted him fired. I don’t know how Howard only caught five words of that entire press conference, but he made his way over to that circle and had no idea he was about to get jumped. And Van Gundy played along with Howard the entire way with that Herculean arm wrapped around his shoulders to convey friendliness.

“We have to stop Carmelo Anthony and the New York Knicks.”

Van Gundy told the truth. That game was the Orlando Magic’s immediate concern that day. But my word Howard’s timing was bad and his coach didn’t even give him a look to let him know how just how bad.

Not every great press conference moment has to be contentious. That’s part of the problem with us human beings. We’re messy. We love nothing more than to observe other people’s complaints and confrontations.

After Wilson’s first professional championship, she was so happy. And not only happy, but the world also found together that when on the adult juice she is what is known as a “happy drunk.” That is not calling her a drunk, but when in that state she is in both a very good and non-destructive mood. If you’ve been on this planet you have met “sloppy drunks,” and “angry drunks.” Both of those can ruin an evening.

Watching her be hilarious and pleasant and go through the stages of high energy, to goofy, to tired all during the same press conference was a joy to watch.

Now back to the mess.

Winning is the goal of sports. No one plays a sport anywhere with the intent to lose. Even if you are the type of pickup basketball player who is just trying to get in some cardio, you are still going to try to win.

Edwards was asked about how the New York Jets were going to maintain a competitive mindset after beginning the 2002 season 2-5. His full response was much longer and the reporter who asked him the question — Judy Battista — didn’t even use that part of the quote in her story.

But ESPN damn sure used it — repeatedly. From the day before Halloween 2002 until the end of time, Edwards will be most remembered for saying the most obvious thing in sports history, by doing it forcefully.

This is a moment that doesn’t make retrospectives when we look back at explosive press conference moments. Maybe deep in our hearts we have always known that fat shaming is inappropriate.

Jimmy Johnson didn’t care about your woke political correctness on that day in 1989. He thought that Buddy Ryan’s players were intentionally trying to hurt his players, and with a season that was already in the toilet, Johnson fired away.

“He wouldn’t stand on the field long enough. He put his big fat rear end in the dressing room.”

I guess Johnson wanted to have a couple of words with Ryan after that game but didn’t get the opportunity. Ryan took the comments in stride. He joked with the media that he thought his diet was working. Ryan was much more mellow in this situation than he was with Kevin Gilbride in 1993.

Should LeBron have thrown his money in our faces after playing some of the worst basketball of his career in the 2011 NBA Finals? He shouldn’t have. But that didn’t make what he said any less true, and any less satisfying for those of us frustrated with the vitriol he received all season for going to the Miami Heat in free agency.

Yes, those people who thunderously booed him in arenas across the NBA got to laugh at his shortcomings. Of course it’s a stain on his career that can never be removed. James will wear it forever no matter how many more championships he wins.

However, after that ugly series ended, he went home to a multimillionaire’s pad in South Florida. Now he is a billionaire with four titles, the NBA’s all-time scoring record, and plays for arguably the most storied franchise — the Lakers.

James was wrong but he was also oh so right, and his critics deserved that.