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As the saying goes, “To the victor belong the spoils.” In the NBA, that means the championship-winning team not only gets to hoist the Larry O’Brien Trophy and etch their names into the annals of history, but also pockets hundreds of thousands of dollars for their troubles, depending on how much the league’s bonus pool is.
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While J.R. Smith might have gotten drunk with a bottle or two of Hennessy after the Cleveland Cavaliers captured the 2016 crown by defeating the heavily favored Golden State Warriors in the NBA Finals, he still remembers the aftermath of that feat, especially the part when the Cavs received the whopping prize of $2,656,422, which they divided amongst themselves.
Bought a championship car
While some would have been more prudent with that extra moolah, Smith wasn’t. Forget the fact that he made only $5,000,000 that season; nothing was going to stop him from purchasing a vehicle he had his eyes on for quite some time: the Ferrari F12berlinetta, a high-performance supercar that the Italian car manufacturer produced from 2012 to 2017.
Ferrari F12 TDF pic.twitter.com/qscPguC0Jt
– LUX Cars (@LuxuryCars365) December 9, 2024
“My favorite lady, I still got her, is my championship car. That’s what I bought with my check. F12 Ferrari. Red junk, gold rims, got them red screws on that thing. That’s my lady right there,” Smith
Swish added that he loved the car so much that his wife actually got jealous of it, especially when he started calling it his “mistress.”
“My wife, she be getting jealous cause I tell her that’s my mistress. She be like, ‘Where you going?’ I’m like, ‘Going out with the fellas.’ ‘You taking your mistress with you?’ ‘You know it.’ Crack that joint up… that’s my baby,” Smith divulged.
Winning an NBA championship is no mean feat, as it involves a lot of blood, sweat, and tears that are shed not only during the regular season but long before it. So nobody can blame Smith for wanting to enjoy the fruits of his labor.
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NBA players and their expensive prizes
Smith wasn’t the only player to blow his championship money on a luxury vehicle. Back in 2011, Dallas Mavericks guard Jason Terry received a $250,000 check and didn’t even wait until tomorrow to use it.
He immediately went to the nearest Bentley dealership and drove out in a blacked-out Continental GT.
“That championship check. I go in Bank of America, I cashed mine out, but it took 10 days to get it. It was a quarter million,” Terry remembered. “Walked into the Bentley dealership with a Cuban cigar in my robe and the hat still on. It was a championship robe, it got the Finals logo on the front and the Mavericks logo on the back.”
Looking back on that impulsive purchase, Terry said it might not have been fiscally responsible to spend that hard-earned cash that way. However, aware that he can’t cry over spilled milk, he can just look at that gorgeous vehicle and consider it a memento of the time they took down the Miami Heat trio of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh, to stand on top of the NBA mountain.
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This story was originally published September 13, 2026 at 10:45 PM.