Dwyane Wade made his home debut with the Chicago Bulls on Thursday against the Boston Celtics. It was a little more of a special debut for Wade, as he starts his this part of his career as a member of his hometown Bulls. In the debut, Wade scored 22 points, grabbed six rebounds and handed out five assists on the night. He also shot 4-6 from three-point range but his biggest three of the night came in the last minute of the game.
Wade drilled the shot and then proceeded to celebrate in an interesting way.
Wade hit the three and did a throat slashing gesture afterwards, something that wasn’t shown in any following replays or highlight packages. Early Friday morning, Dwyane Wade tweeted an apology after his gesture.
I wanna apologize to my young fans on my gesture at the end of last nights game. I was caught up in the emotions of my first game at home.
— DWade (@DwyaneWade) October 28, 2016
The NBA proceeded to issue a $25,000 fine on Friday night.
The #NBA has fined #Bulls star Dwyane Wade $25,000 for making a throat slash gesture last night. pic.twitter.com/WfkemLfryE
— Rob Lopez (@R0BaTO) October 28, 2016
Wade went on to talk about how he knew that the fine was coming, according to Nick Friedell of ESPN.
“They call you, they talk about it, you talk about it, and they decide what they’re going to do from there,” Wade said after Saturday’s shootaround. “But obviously I’ve been in this league for a while, so when they called me — I knew they were going to call me before they called — but like I told them, I didn’t mean anything malicious by it. I was caught in the moment. But when I got done, as soon as I did it, I was like, ‘Yeah, that’s a fine.’
“But it is what it is. There’s rules to this game. You have to respect the rules, and when you don’t you get fined, so it’s all good.”
“I’ve been on a few calls with [the league office],” Wade said. “And I always tell the truth. Whatever it is, they’ve got film, they see everything, and you deal with it and you just move on from it.”
“I was trying not to get fined, and I got fined anyway,” Wade said.
Wade knows better than to do something like this. The All-Star guard has been in the league for over a decade and knows that fines come for these kind of actions. The NBA is usually not really strict as far as fining for celebrations unless it involved a sexual or violent act. I’m sure there was no malicious intent behind Wade’s actions, but it happened and a $25,000 fine won’t break his pockets.
