If the Toronto Raptors beat the Miami Heat on Monday night, they’ll have the chance to advance to the Eastern Conference Finals by winning Game 5 two days later. Air Canada Centre, needless to say, was always going to be rocking regardless of Wednesday’s stakes – even before Dwyane Wade gave his opponent’s rabid fan base a non-basketball reason to antagonize him.
The Heat legend angered a sizable subset of league followers, Canadian or otherwise, by shooting jumpers during the performance of “O Canada” prior to tipoff of Saturday’s game.
That’s Wade in the video below, continuing his warmup with Amar’e Stoudemire as the Canadian National Anthem is being sung at half court. Note that each of his teammates has lined up to respect our northern neighbors, too, just as they – and the Raptors, it bears mentioning – always do when “The Star-Spangled Banner” is performed before every NBA game regardless of the teams competing.
Yikes.
Wade had the opportunity to make amends for his obvious error in judgment when questioned by reporters on Sunday. Instead, though, the future Hall of Famer took a more defensive approach to apologizing. Here’s Wade on the incident courtesy of the Palm Beach Post’s Jason Leiser.
“You’re always sensitive to anything throughout the world,” he said. “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.
“No disrespect from myself or Amar’e (Stoudemire) or anybody. If anybody feels like it was, please don’t fill up my timeline with disrespectful comments, because that’s not this guy right here. Find somebody else with that.”
This series is ugly, and the absences of both Jonas Valanciunas and Hassan Whiteside – likely for its remainder – certainly won’t help matters in that regard. But focus of the narrative surrounding Toronto-Miami still deserves to be on the court as opposed to any distractions coming off of it.
Wade’s first mistake was allowing for the possibility of people feeling disrespected. The 13-year veteran has played against the Raptors 38 times in his career; he not only knows to honor “O Canada”, but also how to adjust his pre-game routine to account for an extra national anthem. He messed up. But an even more egregious misstep was Wade’s non-apology for his clear blunder.
There’s already no love lost between the Raptors, Heat, and their respective followers. Come Game 5, though? Wade will be public enemy number one throughout all of Canada, and perhaps rightfully so.
