Wade-LeBron's Dunk Picture

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About

Wade-LeBron's Dunk Picture refers to a famous photograph of Miami Heat basketball players Dwyane Wade and Lebron James delivering a memorable dunk. The photograph was taken by ESPN reporter Morry Gash during the December 6th, 2010, match at the Bradley Center. The photograph is often referred to as an iconic sports photograph.^[17]^[18] In memes, the image is a prominent subject of redraws and remakes.

Origin

On December 6th, 2010, NBA team the Miami Heat faced off against the Milwaukee Bucks at the Bradley Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.^[1] Two minutes into the first quarter, the Heat had a 6-2 lead over the Bucks as Miami Heat player Dwyane Wade secured a rebound and led the fast break. Wade fed Lebron James, who was following behind, a bounce pass, with James scoring a dunk (video shown below).^[2] Miami Heat won the game 88-78, with Wade scoring 25 points and James scoring 17.

Already on December 7th, 2010, LeBron James tweeted^[3] the photograph, writing, "By far one of the best sports pics I've seen taken!!" (tweet shown below).

Spread

In the following years, the photograph was often reposted in NBA and sports communities. For example, on June 1st, 2017, Redditor^[4] the1frommars reposted the photograph, writing, "This is the best picture of the Lebron-Wade duo," with the post gaining over 17,600 upvotes in six months.

The photograph received a major spike in online recognition after on December 6th, 2018, ESPN tweeted^[5] the image. The tweet (shown below) received over 18,500 retweets and 68,200 likes in three years.

On December 8th, 2018, ESPN posted a clip behind the photograph to its website^[2] and to Facebook.^[6]

On March 10th, 2019, artist the_wright_artist posted the first known redraw based on the image, a Toy Story redraw, to his Twitter^[7] and Instagram,^[8] where it gained over 20,500 retweets and 69,800 likes and 27,200 likes in three years, respectively (shown below).

On March 11th, 2019, basketball news website Fadeaway World^[9] wrote about the_wright_artist's artwork.

Before November 2021, two more notable redraws of the image were made. On April 6th, 2019, artist CPTOEY (6thman) posted a Dragon Ball version of the image, which gained over 8,300 likes on Instagram^[10] in three years. On July 22nd, 2020, artist Nicole Kim (@ynkimart) shared a SpongeBob SquarePants redraw of the photograph commissioned by a client on Behance^[11] (shown below, right).

In 2020 and 2021, both images were widely circulated online, prompting @ynkimart to repost the image to her personal Twitter^[12] and Instagram^[13] in November 2021.

Starting in December 2021, the image has often been used as source material for redraws and remakes. For example, on December 14th, 2021, Twitter^[14] user @choiceoxide posted a Naruto version of the image that gained over 1,000 retweets and 6,000 likes in one month. On December 24th, 2021, YouTuber^[15] Flare uploaded an SFM remake of the photograph, which gained over 68,300 views in one month (shown below), also sharing it as a PNG image.^[16]