Dwyane Wade Jokingly Said That LeBron James Is Cheap Backstage At 'Live! With Kelly'

Wade: Oh, LeBron. 

Kelly: Is he a bad tipper?

Wade: No, he's an exact tipper ... But he doesn't use his cell phone off the boat if there's no Wi-Fi.

Gabrielle Union: If there's no Wi-Fi, he does not mess with data roaming.

Wade: This is no joke. [imitating LeBron] 'I'm gonna send this text before I leave the boat because there ain't gonna be no Wi-Fi, probably.' It's amazing. And I'm like, 'we just rented a yacht. You flew private here.'

Union: But no data roaming. That's where he draws the line.



On the surface it seems a little ridiculous that LeBron James - the guy with the billion dollar deal with Nike - is legitimately concerned about the pricing of data overages. The fucking guy could have every app on his phone going, his brightness turned all the way up, and his WiFi turned off from now until we are standing for his moment of silence and he wouldn't even have to dip into his hundreds of millions he's made playing basketball to pay the bills.

Still, I don't find the fact that he is the cheap one amongst the 'Banana Boat Boys' at all surprising. It's well known that LeBron has basically been the Cavaliers general manager for the last two years. Dan Gilbert might be paying the players but you can bet your ass that LeBron is the one budgeting the salaries, and if there's anything that someone running a sports franchise has to know it's when to make it rain and when to pinch pennies. That's why LeBron has no problem putting up money for relatively lavish expenses like private jets and personal yachts, but there ain't no way he's giving Verizon an extra cent when anyone that he would want to talk to is on already on vacation with him. That's not frugality, it's just good business. I am going to let you in on a little secret my late great friend Steve Jobs once potentially told an unknown publication, "the rich don't get richer by racking up gigs."


​"Dwyane, didn't I tell you to get us the password at the front desk?!"