The Los Angeles Lakers are commemorating their 16th NBA Championship with a ring that has a few touches that have never before been seen in a sports ring.
Each and every ring is adorned with a piece of the actual ball used in game seven of the 2010 NBA Finals.
The two Larry O'Brien trophies representing the back to back titles are made from a custom batch of 16kt gold.
16 oversized round brillant white diamonds indicate the 16 championships the franchise has won.
Each player is immortalized with a three dimensional sculpture of their face on their respective rings.
The final score of the Lakers 83-79 game seven victory over the Boston Celtics is represented on the side of the ring in scoreboard fashion.
Gilbert does not regret ripping LeBron
si.com
CLEVELAND (AP) -- Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert isn't taking back one word about LeBron James - or as he called him, "the player that left."
Gilbert, who harshly criticized James after the two-time MVP announced he was leaving as a free agent this summer, said Wednesday night before Cleveland's season opener that he doesn't regret calling out the superstar, now with the Miami Heat.
Shortly after James announced he was leaving, Gilbert fired off an angry letter to Cleveland's fans vilifying James. He called him "narcissistic" and accused him of "cowardly behavior."
"I don't regret it," said Gilbert, who made similar comments earlier in the day on WKNR radio. "That letter was to the fans and the supporters of the Cavaliers and it wasn't to the player that left, it wasn't to the rest of the world. It wasn't to anybody but them. I wanted them to understand not only how I felt but how everyone felt in the entire organization."
Not long after posting the infamous letter on the Cavs' team website, Gilbert told The Associated Press that he felt James quit during last season's playoffs against Boston.
Gilbert - whose comments drew a $100,000 fine from Commissioner David Stern - didn't take back those remarks, either.
"There are some of the things everybody has to make their own personal judgment on," Gilbert said. "It's a subjective judgment when you watch a game or watch a tape. You make those kinds of judgments. I'd rather not answer directly. I'd really rather not comment what my feelings are any more, but everybody has to make their own decisions on that."
Gilbert has taken a low profile since July, when James left the Cavs after seven seasons. James' decision caught Gilbert by surprise because in the days leading up to his announcement, the 25-year-old maintained re-signing with Cleveland was still a possibility.
Gilbert felt betrayed by James and was upset that the All-Star forward did not communicate his intentions to the team until an hour-long TV special to announce his decision was already on the air.
In his letter to Cleveland fans, Gilbert not only ripped James but he guaranteed his team would win a championship before his former player.
He still believes that's possible.
"You never know," he said. "Look, these things will play themselves out and we'll see what happens. It was certainly something that put more emphasis on the future and put more pressure on everyone here to say, 'Hey, let's deliver as smart and efficiently as we possibly can.' We'll see what happens."
In the days after James' departure, Gilbert was accused of coddling and enabling the star. Critics said the preferential treatment given to James and his inner circle of friends empowered them into thinking they could get away with anything.
Gilbert said there are many misconceptions about what went on.
"There's a lot of nonsense that LeBron was asking for all these things and doing all these things and having all these privileges," said Gilbert, who acknowledged watching James' debut with the Heat on Tuesday night. "It's simply not true. None of that stuff happened, none of his friends flew on the plane. It's simply not true.
"In respect to him, he didn't ask for huge material things. There's some people that had some tickets before we got here, which we honored the five years we were here, but there really wasn't that much stuff. People write about this in the big-picture sense, but you never hear what the details are because there aren't any."
Among his many accomplishments with Cleveland, James became the leading scorer in franchise history and carried the Cavs to their only NBA finals appearance in 2007. It's assumed that some day James will have his jersey retired by the team and hung from the rafters of Quicken Loans Arena along with those of Austin Carr, Mark Price, Larry Nance, Brad Daugherty and others.
Gilbert sidestepped a question as to whether he would ever honor James by retiring his No. 23.
"We haven't even had that discussion on any player," Gilbert said. "I would assume that it's something you would do when a player retires. It's something that we haven't addressed. I'm sure it will come up and as it comes up, we'll address it."
Tressel was worried about high winds Tuesday
Posted by John Taylor
As you have no doubt heard or read by now, a 20-year-old videographer for the Notre Dame football team died earlier today after the scissors lift on which he was perched collapsed/was felled by high winds.
The high winds that buttressed much of the Midwest Wednesday were remnants from a significant storm system that stretched 1,200 miles Tuesday and wreaked havoc across a huge cross-section of the country, from the upper Midwest all the way down through portions of the South.
Before Ohio State was set to practice yesterday, and in an eerie foreshadowing of today's tragedy, Ohio State head coach Jim Tressel was asked whether his team would practice inside or outside due to the weather conditions.
"I don't know if we'll be inside or out," Tressel said according to the Lake County News-Herald. "It looks a little nasty. I worry about our cameramen, their well-being up there 50 feet in the air."
The scissor lift used to videotape Irish football practices could stretch 50 feet or higher. Wind gusts exceeded 50 mph in the Columbus area Tuesday as the storm blew through; according to multiple reports, gusts in the South Bend area topped out at 51 mph around the time of today's accident.
The Buckeyes ultimately practiced indoors yesterday.
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