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NBA fines Brooklyn Nets player Cam Thomas $40,000 for homophobia during TV interview

Cam Thomas, no homo, NBA fine, interview, basketball, Brooklyn Nets, Jared Greenberg interviews Spencer Dinwiddie and Cam Thomas
Jared Greenberg interviews Spencer Dinwiddie and Cam Thomas Photo: Twitter screenshot

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.

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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