(UPDATE 5/8/16, 10:00pm):
Dwyane Wade unapologetically addressed his reasons to shoot warm-up Js during the singing of the Canadian national anthem. He apparently was doing this to complete his pre-game ritual of needing to make his final warm-up jumper, which he has held throughout his career, but he kept missing before the first note of the "O Canada" was sung and beyond. He explained:
"You’re always sensitive to anything throughout the world. I’m not thinking about nothing like that. I’m thinking about what I need to do before every game that I prepare for and have been doing my whole career. I understand whatever’s said from that standpoint, but I’m not a disrespectful person. If anybody thinks I’m being disrespectful to their country, then they have no idea who Dwyane Wade is.”
See the original story below.
Prior to yesterday afternoon's Game 3 loss to the Toronto Raptors, the Miami Heat's Dwyane Wade did his best to squeeze in a few extra warm-up jumpers. Unfortunately, he did so instead of standing up straight and at least pretending to care about the Canadian national anthem.
The incriminating footage was captured by a fan's cell phone:
The response from Canadian Twitter has been truly vicious characteristically polite:
Also adding in his two cents is someone who carries slightly more weight than the average Twitter user, the Mayor of Toronto:
After being briefed about the minor uproar his pregame bricks caused, Wade defended himself:
In previous not-standing-for-the-anthem news, Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf was suspended one game for a somewhat similar incident when he didn't rise for the U.S. rendition as a form of protest in 1996. The gesture was justified by the NBA brass because there's an official rule that states, "Players, coaches and trainers are to stand and line up in a dignified posture . . . during the playing of the American and/or Canadian national anthems."
However, that was a repeated offense and it wasn't the playoffs. What we're saying is don't hold your breath waiting for a similar punishment here.
