In case you’re wondering about the connection here, social media and the Internet in general reacted in spectacular fashion to the NBA Finals, especially now that Dirk Nowitzki and Dallas Mavericks surprisingly defeated the LeBron James and the Miami Heat. It’s pretty obvious that, while Dallas received tons of accolades for their breath-of-fresh-air finish, the story was LeBron James’ failure.

At least the was the narrative the day after the Finals ended.

Two days later, however, it seems celebrating the Dallas win is now the thing, even if it’s at the expense of LeBron James leaving the Cleveland Cavaliers and the resulting ire that followed. Thankfully, there are a number of NBA-following blog to catch these stories as they pop up. Perhaps the most humorous reaction to the Mavericks winning came from the state of Ohio itself, when Governor John Kasich made the entire Mavericks team honorary Ohioans, complete with a certificate acknowledging the accomplishment.

Furthermore, the distinction doesn’t miss a chance to poke fun at LeBron James and his decision to leave the Cleveland Cavaliers, using Nowtizki’s career path to emphasize their dislike:

Over at The Basketball Jones blog, Trey Kirby puts the honorary procedure into perspective, detailing the effort used to take a crack at an NBA free agent who decided to go elsewhere:

This is a pretty high-level LeBron crack, all things considered. Not only did the governor actually have to draft such a resolution, it also had to go through the bureaucratic process necessary to get anything done in government. That’s a lot of paperwork, just to dig at a guy who left a basketball team. But hey, if it keeps the constituents happy, it’s totally worth it. Anything for the constituents.

Of course, when you are talking about constituents who collective harbor such hard feelings, as seen here:

You can see why the state of Ohio went through the trouble of honoring the Dallas Mavericks.

Some additional fun post-NBA Finals Internet content again uses Dirk Nowitzki to poke fun at LeBron James, this time, it’s courtesy of DeShawn Stevenson. If you need some background on the relationship between James and Stevenson, read more here. The shirt in question:

Well, then. Not much else can be said here that Stevenson’s shirt doesn’t already say. It’s also clear that LeBron James is about as close to public enemy number one as a sports star can be, especially when their biggest failure, aside from shrinking in the NBA Finals, is leaving one team for another. There aren’t any pit bull fighting circuits on James’ rap sheet, right?

James aside, there was some joy to be had from Dallas’ victory, and it wasn’t just from reveling in the failure of others. Shawn Marion, for one, is loving life as an NBA Champion, something the following video demonstrates quite nicely:

Apparently, after Mark Cuban got done, it was Shawn Marion’s turn to take the Larry O’Brien trophy to bed.