NBA Fines Cam Thomas $40,000 for ‘No Homo’ Comment
Brooklyn Nets guard Thomas becomes the latest in a line of basketball players who have been fined for anti-LGBTQ language.
NBA player Cam Thomas has been fined $40,000 for using a phrase critics say is homophobic.
The 21-year-old guard for the Brooklyn Nets used the phrase during a postgame interview with a TNT reporter following the team’s victory over the Chicago Bulls on Feb. 9.
The reporter asked Thomas about a joke that his new teammate, Spencer Dinwiddie, had made earlier last week, talking about the recent trade that landed him on the Nets.
As part of a trade with the Dallas Mavericks, the Nets sent NBA superstar point guard Kyrie Irving and power forward Markieff Morris to Dallas, in exchange for Dinwiddie, another player, and several future draft picks.
Dinwiddie later commented that while the Nets might not have acquired the most talented players in the deal, they did get the “best-looking” players, adding that “the Nets needed some help in that department.”
“I seen it,” Thomas said in response to Dinwiddie’s remarks. “But I was like, ‘Man, he just talking.’ We already had good-looking dudes,” before adding, “No homo.”
The reporter, Jared Greenberg, was caught off guard by Thomas’s words. “Surely the league office will enjoy that one,” he said, a reference to the NBA’s practice of fining players who use homophobic language.
“No homo” is a slang expression, often used as a joke, added at the end of sentences to defend its speaker against potential accusations of harboring homosexual desires.
But its use has rankled some more sensitive members of the LGBTQ community, who believe it paints homosexuality as an undesirable trait.
Thomas later took to Twitter to apologize for the statement.
“I was excited about the win and was being playful,” Thomas tweeted. “I definitely didn’t intend to offend anyone, but realize that I probably did. My apologies again. Much love.”
I want to apologize for the insensitive word I used in the post-game interview. I was excited about the win and was being playful. I definitely didn't intend to offend anyone, but realize that I probably did. My apologies again. Much love 🫶🏽❤️
— Cam Thomas (@24_camthomas) February 10, 2023
In recent years, the NBA has doled out punishments to players for using homophobic language or making anti-gay remarks — much to the chagrin of opponents of political correctness, who argue the league has gone overboard in trying to police language that might offend some people.
In September, the league fined Minnesota Timberwolves star Anthony Edwards $40,000 for a now-deleted Instagram video in which he used a homophobic and racial slur to refer to a group of shirtless men huddling together and embracing each other.
According to an investigation by the LGBTQ sports website Outsports, more than 40 NBA players have used anti-LGBTQ language on social media 75 separate times.
Some of those players include former Brooklyn Nets star Kevin Durant — now a member of the Phoenix Suns — who was fined $50,000 for using homophobic slurs on social media; Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic, who was fined $25,000 in 2018 for using an anti-gay slur to describe a Chicago Bulls player in a post-game interview; Indiana Pacers center Roy Hibbert, who was fined $75,000 for saying “no homo” and “motherf***ers” during a news conference in 2013; and Chicago Bulls center Joakim Noah, who was fined $50,00 for hurling an anti-gay slur at a fan in 2011.
Because $40,000 appears to be the typical punishment in today’s NBA for such comments, it came as no surprise when — despite his apology — Thomas was fined that exact amount for using “derogatory and disparaging language,” according to an NBA press release.
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