Pro-basketball player Cam Thomas has been fined $40,000 by the National Basketball Association (NBA) for saying “no homo” during a post-game TV interview.
Thomas, who plays as a shooting guard and small forward for the Brooklyn Nets, made his comments after his team beat the Chicago Bulls in a February 9 match.
After the match, Thomas and his newly added teammate Spencer Dinwiddie spoke to TNT sports reporter Jared Greenberg. Greenberg asked Thomas about a humorous comment Dinwiddie made earlier in the week in which he said that he and another newly added Nets teammate were the best-looking new members added to the team.
“The Nets needed some help in that department,” Dinwiddie had joked.
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When Greenberg asked Thomas if he had seen any coverage about Dinwiddie’s comment, Thomas replied, “I seen it, but I was like, ‘He just talking.’ We already had good-looking dudes, no homo.”
“No homo,” is a hip-hop slang expression, added at the end of sentences, to defend its speaker against accusations of expressing homosexual desire. While “no homo” is sometimes said as a joke, it also “positions homosexuality and gay men as inferior to heterosexuality or heterosexual men [and]… represents homosexuality as socially undesirable,” according to linguistics scholar Nic Subtirelu.
The same evening after uttering the phrase, Thomas wrote via Twitter, “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.”
The following day, NBA’s executive Vice President and head of basketball operations Joe Dumars, announced a $40,000 fine against Thomas for “using derogatory and disparaging language during a live television interview.”
This isn’t the first time the NBA has fined a player for uttering the phrase.
In 2013, the NBA fined Indiana Pacers center Roy Hibbert $75,000 for saying “no homo” and “mother f**kers” during a news conference. Hibbert later apologized for his “insensitive remarks.” In 2018, the NBA fined Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic $25,000 for saying “no homo” during an October post-game interview. Fellow NBA players Rajon Rondo, Kobe Bryant, and Joakim Noah have all also been previously punished for using anti-gay slurs during games.
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