After a hands-on review at league headquarters in Manhattan Thursday afternoon, the league has ****ed the shaded goggles Wade planned to wear against the Knicks. Officials determined there was too much tinting and it would have given him a competitive advantage because opponents would not be able to see his eyes.
Wade, who has been suffering some light sensitivity after a bout with a migraine last weekend, practiced with the glasses over the past several days and was going to use them out of precaution at Madison Square Garden.
Wade expected to play and might experiment with league-approved glasses with less shading.
"It's goggle-gate," deadpanned Heat coach Erik Spoelstra. "They have approved some other goggles he can wear. He may give it a shot."
The Heat had sent the league some pictures of the goggles this week in an attempt to get approval. With the team in town, trainer Jay Sabol took the glasses over to the NBA's Fifth Avenue home to have them examined. And ultimately denied.
"The decision has been made, we're moving on, there's no excuses" Spoelstra said. "He wasn't 100 percent going to wear them for the whole game anyway."
Wade had a reoccurrence of some of the migraine symptoms when the team arrived in New York Wednesday night and said Thursday he wanted to use the shades to avoid any setbacks.
"I just don't want to take chances right now," said Wade, who missed the Heat's victory last Saturday with the migraine. "I want to play, and I don't want nothing to stop that."
I would think it would be hard to see with tinted goggles.