This week, the internet can’t stop talking about Dwyane Wade’s new Miami Heat statue. Since its unveiling last Saturday, social media users have unapologetically shared their thoughts on the tribute to the retired NBA star.
Most recently, fellow NBA veteran Charles Barkley joined the conversation. In a segment of TNT’s “Tip-Off,” Barkley unapologetically called the statue “ugly.”
“It’s a great honor but they gotta take that thing down,” Barkley told co-hosts Ernie Johnson, Shaquille O’Neal and Kenny Smith. “If you made an ugly statue that’s what it would look like. That thing is awful.”
While his co-hosts tried to defend the statue, arguing that it depicts Wade making an “animated face,” Barkley, like many social media users, argued that the statue looked nothing like the former Miami Heat player.
“The statue was so bad they had to put all his stats behind it so you know who it was,” he continued.
Despite social media criticism, Oscar Leon, one of the artists behind the Wade tribute, claimed that “there’s a lot that needs to be understood” about the sculpture.
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“We have to seal everything to keep the integrity of the sculpture. However, that does create a funny little side effect of being glossy in areas that we are not used to seeing when we look at somebody in the flesh,” Leon explained, as previously reported by theGrio. “The sealer definitely creates a little bit of, um, a misunderstanding to the eye. So, I would definitely encourage everyone to come to Miami and view it in person.”
While social media users have enjoyed poking fun at the statue’s appearance and Wade’s seemingly shady reaction to seeing it for the first time, Wade revealed that he’s “in on the joke,” and has stood behind the work.
“I don’t know a lot of people with a statue…It’s an unbelievable process to be a part of and it’s a complicated process,” he said in a press conference. “If I want it to look like me, I’ll just stand outside of the arena and y’all just take photos. It don’t need to look like me. It’s an artistic version of a moment that happened.”
As the star laughs along at some of the social media jokes about the statue, he says he’s ultimately unbothered by the online criticism.
“Everybody else’s opinion of it is their opinions, and everyone has one, and they’re allowed to utilize it, but we’re not concerned with no one’s opinion,” he told People magazine. “We wouldn’t have a statue if we ever, ever was concerned with someone’s opinion.”
