Guarantee a good bet to look silly

Maybe it's the times in which we live, but guarantees seem to be showing up everywhere. Worried about buying a car? The car companies swear they'll make your payments if you become unemployed. Thinking of suing the pants off someone? Some law offices promise they'll win your case or it won't cost a dime.

So it came as no real surprise that, on Monday in Orlando, Cleveland guard Mo Williams not only declared the Cavs the best team in basketball, but he guaranteed they will win their Eastern Conference finals series against the Magic.

"Guarantee we're going to win the series? Yeah, yeah," he told reporters.

So you can take that to the bank. The Cavaliers are going to the NBA finals, because Williams says so.

If not, well, SORRRRRRY.

The thing about sports guarantees is that most of them don't have to back up anything. If someone sells you a barbecue grill, and you don't think it cooks evenly enough, you have a money-back guarantee. But an athlete guarantees something and if he's wrong, oh well! Better luck next time.

Last time I checked, the term "guarantee" implied reimbursement or restitution, if necessary.

Just saying, "Oops!" doesn't seem like enough to me.

It's impossible to enumerate the sports guarantees that have been uttered. Muhammad Ali swore he'd whip Sonny Liston, and he did. The most famous sports guarantee of all was Joe Namath's Super Bowl III promise that the Jets would beat the Colts. Sure enough, it happened.

One of the best sports guarantees ever was the 2008 Arizona Rattlers' vow that if they didn't make the playoffs, season-ticket holders would get a full refund. That was on the heels of a 4-12 season.

The Rattlers made the playoffs, losing in the first round.

Still, that's what I call a bold guarantee.

For some reason, reporters like to goad athletes and coaches into making guarantees, though oftentimes they do it on their own. Former Wyoming football coach Joe Glenn promised a small group of fans in 2007 that the Cowboys would beat Utah that week. The Utes ended up winning 50-0.

"I got pretty emotional last Monday at a luncheon with some students, got my big Irish mouth going," Glenn explained afterward.

At least he was cool enough to say after the loss, "You go find a crow and I'll eat it."

Maybe he should have guaranteed that, too.

Rasheed Wallace — not the world's most credible source — warranted the Pistons would win Game 2 of the Eastern Conference finals in 2004. Not only did they do that, they won the NBA championship. At the same time, Milwaukee's Sam Cassell once promised a win over Detroit, but his team ended up losing by 34 points.