Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving's Weed Celebration Was a Mustache Celebration, Say the Cavs

Dear reader, it’s with some trepidation that I reveal myself as the possible inspiration for an allegedly illicit handshake shared by Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving on the conclusion of Monday night’s win over the Pelicans.

Truth be told, from where I sit in the upper reaches of press row – what I cheekily call the “Uecker Zone” – it wasn’t possible to see the elaborate handshake the two stars shared after igniting a second-half comeback.

Fortunately for us, we live in a surveillance state. The video was captured during the Fox Sports broadcast. (Fred McLeod wryly comments “we need to learn that handshake” generating a guffaw by Austin Carr.) It naturally resurfaced on the web sparking some controversy.


At the conclusion of the elaborate hand jive, the young Cavs stars raise their forefinger and thumb to their mouth in a manner reminiscent of Jack Nicholson in Easy Rider.

Despite the advances we’ve made in gay rights and aerosol pancake batter, it’s apparently easier to accept that athletes beat their wives/girlfriends than that they smoke marijuana. Just don’t ask Bill Simmons about this.

So it’s perhaps not surprising that after the video surfaced, the Cavaliers felt compelled to suggest that it is not what it might appear to be:

“To clarify, they are quickly sharpening the end of an imaginary mustache at the end of their exchange with each other. It has nothing to do with smoking a joint as some blogs (and even some mainstream folks now) are suggesting/reporting.” [Emphasis mine.]

This sort of shocked me. You see, I have a handlebar mustache, and have been known to twist and twirl the end of it when bored, Dick Dastardly-style.


There’s no conclusion but that I have been made the fall-guy for this handshake.

Now don’t be fooled, I’m no rube. If one looks hard enough you can find my past connections with illicit publications. They’ve clearly sussed out their patsy well. They saw me coming in the under-halls of the Q and figured I was a guy they could pin it on if things went wrong.

It’s alright. I’m a team player. But we definitely need to keep Josh Gordon away from the Cavs games.