Photojournalist Charles Trainor Jr. captures Dwyane Wade's Final Dance

By Al Diaz

Miami Herald Photojournalist

Legendary point guard Dywane Wade crashed into John Legend and Chrissy Teigen while shooting a jump shot during his final regular season home game for the Miami Heat. Miami Herald photojournalist Charles Trainor Jr. captured the decisive moment in a photograph. Once tweeted, the image went viral. 

Charlie and I covered many of Wade’s games over the years during his time in Miami, playoff games and NBA Championships in cities across the country. We were both assigned to cover the "The Last Dance", his final year and a tribute to the NBA All-Star on Tuesday night along with Matias Ocner shooting video.  

All the photographers that night seemed anxious, not knowing how the night would play out and hoping to get the perfect moment to compliment this future NBA Hall of Fame member. Charlie, Matias and I divided the coverage with only one position on the court, Charlie and I rotated as Matias shot pregame and postgame video. 

In the fourth quarter, I was sitting under the basket capturing Wade’s reactions after hitting several three-pointers. Charlie was shooting from the overhead position with a Canon EF 200-400mm f/4L IS USM Extender 1.4x Lens mounted on a Canon EOS 1D-X. 

Charlie says, “In the final two minutes my lens was locked on Wade. I felt this is where the sentimental, emotional, heartwarming image would be captured. Then he shot a fade and fell back crushing his good friends, model and author, Christine Teigen and singer-songwriter, John Legend in their courtside seats.” 

The photograph was retweeted by Teigen, who wrote “a renaissance painting.” From there, it went VIRAL and used on TMZ, BuzzFeed, NBC's TODAY SHOW and Entertainment Tonight.

Charlie says, “My friends at FOX WSVN did a 90-second news segment and comedian Jimmy Fallon displayed it during his nightly monologue. I think it was the most viral photo of the day. It seemed to be everywhere and several celebrities continued the retweets, including Reese Witherspoon! Who would ever guess that Reese would Tweet me! Charlie said.