Kobe adds asterisk to Shaq’s fantasy football championship

LOS ANGELES, CA — The Los Angeles Lakers Fantasy Football Association’s year-end banquet ended in contention Thursday, when it was discovered that Kobe Bryant had defaced the Divac Cup – the traveling trophy that has been turned over to the league champion for the past 22 years.

“I was getting ready to give Kobe the cup,” said Andrew Bynum, whose Bynum’s Bombahs run at back-to-back championships was ended by Bryant in this year’s finals, 110.72-104.81. “I decided to read off the championship winners, just so people could get a sense of history. I mean, Magic Johnson won this trophy; James Worthy held this trophy; Kareem… it’s an impressive list. Well, I get to Shaq, and I look down, and I realize that there’s an asterisk next to his name from his 2004 Championship. It hadn’t been there before … it was sort of etched in all weird, like it had been done with a dinner knife or something.”

Bynum said he was really upset, and looked around to see who the guilty party could be. That’s when he realized that it was likely Kobe Bryant.

“Kobe was just sort of sitting there, staring at me blankly,” Bynum said. “So I said, ‘Kobe, did you deface the Divac Cup?’ And he looks at me, doesn’t say anything for like two minutes, and then says, ‘I allowed the truth to be told, if that’s what you are asking.’”

Bryant later explained that the asterisk stems from a controversy that occurred early in 2004, when O’Neal – then the commissioner of the league – picked up Muhsin Muhammad from the waiver wire just before the receiver’s 16-touchdown season.

“He had no right to Muhammad,” Bryant said. “I had a higher waiver priority. He said he didn’t receive my waiver request in time, which is total crap – how can I help it if sometimes something gets stuck on the information superhighway? Anyway, if I have Muhsin Muhammad, I easily win the league. Easily. Hence, the asterisk.”

Bynum, who is known to take fantasy football extremely seriously, was not swayed. “This is a breach of fantasy sports etiquette and an outright assault on reason,” the young center said. “History is history, and it’s not subject to the whims of petty superstars or revisionists. If Shaq had Muhsin Muhammad on the field, by God, he should have Muhsin Muhammad in history, and he certainly should not have his name graffiti’d on the Divac Cup.

“The Divac Cup is bigger than all of us.”

It’s going to be tough for this sport to sweep any nations, but it’s still pretty frickin’ cool!