JaVale McGee is an NBA champion. He held the Larry O’Brien trophy, he’ll get a ring in the fall. There’s very little he shares in common with Kevin Durant, except that they both have something that will shut up their haters forever.
JaVale McGee now has a rat tail, a weird hairless cat, and an NBA championship
via Golden State Warriors, Twitter
James Dator has been covering a wide range of sports for SB Nation for over a decade, with a special focus on the NFL.
Up to this point, McGee’s career had been turned into a punchline. A serviceable, but unspectacular player made infamous by being singled out by Shaquille O’Neal and turned into a joke. McGee’s regular appearances on Shaqtin’ A Fool transcended laughing with the player, and became uncomfortable. He was singled out and derided in a league where far more deserving players could have had ridicule thrown their way.
In the end, it took him a decade to win his first NBA championship. It took Shaq nine years. McGee won’t be in the Hall of Fame, and yet he did something scores of Hall of Famers never could — and had his weird cat on his side through all of it.
JaVale makes us believe that anything is possible. No matter how much people try to drag you down, or make fun of you, or say you don’t belong — you can find a role and a home with the best team on the planet and they’ll love you for who you are.
They’ll love you with a rat tail, and a weird cat — they’ll love you when you say you don’t drink, but earnestly believe you might have absorbed alcohol through your skin (This really happened on his Snapchat). They’ll love you when you dress like a 2017 John Lennon, just because you can.
After a career of being laughed at, the world laughed along with JaVale McGee — and he loved every second of it. Sure he was barely on the floor, but he shined during the NBA Finals and we loved him for it. Congratulations, JaVale.
