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Dwyane Wade Apologizes For Controversy That Wasn’t Really His Fault

by Glenn Davis | 3:02 pm, July 19th, 2010

Predictably, Dwyane Wade released a statement today apologizing for including a World Trade Center reference in remarks he made yesterday. Unfortunately, it probably shouldn’t have come to this.

Here’s a writeup on Wade’s apology, via ESPN. His statement doubles as a scolding for misreporting/misinterpreting his words to begin with:

It appears that my reference to the World Trade Center has been either inaccurately reported or taken completely out of context. I was simply trying to say that losing a few basketball games should not be compared to a real catastrophe. While it was certainly not my intention, I sincerely apologize to anyone who found my reference to the World Trade Center to be insensitive or offensive.

Just your run-of-the-mill statement, really. But we definitely understand why Wade might be peeved. We still feel like he could have avoided the World Trade Center reference altogether – as he found out, any mention of it at all is asking for trouble – but, again, here’s the most accurate transcription of what he said:

Of course, there’s gonna be times when we might lose one, two games in row, I mean, two games, three games in a row, you never know. And it’s going to seem like the world has crashed down. Y’all gonna make it seem like the World Trade has just went down again. Not gonna be nothing but a couple basketball games lost and we’ll have to get back on track.

…vs. what was originally printed:

We’re going to be wearing a bullseye. But that’s what you play for. If we lose a couple in a row this season, it will be like the World Trade (Center) is coming down again.

Looks a whole lot worse devoid of context, doesn’t it?

Nevertheless, Wade’s apology had to happen from a PR standpoint, no matter how inaccurately his comments were initially reported (very, for the record). And hopefully, he learned a valuable lesson about 9/11 in the process: no matter how innocuous a comment seems in your head…don’t mention it.

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