The Weakside: Wade on Wade

I was already starting to check out on college basketball. But it was a helluva year. A freshman from Syracuse was better than anyone else in the NCAA, and the hype train was telling us a high school student in Ohio was even better than him.

It would be a lie to say I believed anything other than the consensus view.

There was a guy I had my eye on, though. It started as a novelty. We shared a surname. He had some highlights on SportsCenter, and I caught a few games in his freshman year. I was very familiar with him by 2003 when it came time to fill out the March Madness bracket.

I remember that I picked Kentucky to beat Marquette and head to the Final Four. I struggled with that, wanting to think the dude with my name could do it. But I wanted to win money even more.

Then, I remember watching Dwyane Wade not just beat, but destroy, the No. 1-seeded Wildcats and put Marquette into the Final Four. Who cared about an NCAA pool after seeing that? Dwyane scored 29 points on 16 shots to go along with 11 assists. His four blocks stood out, a harbinger of a career that would see him become arguably the best shot-blocking guard of all time.

Marquette got waxed by the Kansas Jayhawks in the next game, and the skinny kid with cornrows who could score at will ended up cutting down the nets for Syracuse. But outside of Carmelo, it was Dwyane’s breakout tournament.

He was drafted fifth overall that summer in maybe the best NBA Draft we’ve ever seen. You know the rest.

He won a title as a 24-year-old, then joined up with a few buddies and put on a four-year run for the ages. He paired with LeBron James on the wing and they played in a way that helped Chris Bosh reinvent himself from a 20/10 guy with a lot of talent into one of the most unique and underrated players in league history. Along with an innovative system dreamed up in Erik Spoelstra’s genius mind, they together helped push pace-and-space from a catchphrase into a style the whole league now imitates.

As stupid as it was, the name thing is what first got my attention. I think there are now several other folks named Wade in the world of pro sports, but there weren’t any I knew about when I first heard of Dwyane at Marquette.

Quickly, however, I could care less about the name and just fell in love with his approach to the sport.

Kobe was the Next Jordan at the time, but Young Dwyane played more in the vein of Young Mike, attacking the hoop without care or concern for defenders. It didn’t matter of they were in the way. It was his cylinder to put the ball in, and he was going to put the ball in it one way or the other. Over, through, around — it didn’t matter. His strong, athletic, graceful, unrelenting run to the rim was unstoppable.

Dwyane gained polish with time, adding a ball-fake that, despite his inability to make 3s, just like MJ, still got even good defenders to jump. He put people off balance and tricked them like a clown at a kid’s party. He developed a version that was ball-fake-turned-into-no-look-swing pass. I had never seen anyone do it and it became a staple. He could get two defenders, his own and the man in help side, to fear the cold midrange jumper or the fake-then-dribble blow by. Then he just lofts a pass sideways into his teammates shooting pocket for an open J.

The subtlety of such skills, mixed with the fierceness off the bounce, was mesmerizing. When he was in space, everything about his game was refined, and yet there was at the same time this primal feeling to his game as he attacked the paint. It was a joy to watch, and at some point, it led me to make what felt like a startling admission.

Here’s a way to put it into perspective: I don’t remember all that many NBA-related articles or blog posts that I have written even over the past three years, let alone the past decade. But I know the first one I ever wrote — the thoughts in my head that I just had to share with the world — came during the 2006 Finals. After the Heat won their first game — a must-win Game 3 after falling down 0-2 — I was compelled to stay up super late, learn how to register a domain name, and pump out some poorly written words on WordPress.

Those scribbles were (thankfully) lost to time after I failed to re-register the domain. But I know I predicted the Heat would win the title. The dude with my name had just dropped 42 points in the Finals. He was doing the Marquette thing again, and the Mavs had no answer, particularly for the way he was able to get to the line as Miami came back to win with a huge fourth quarter.

But the actual admission came later, after he won his ring. In what seemed like the big NBA fan moment in my life, I revealed that watching Dwyane was my new favorite thing to do. I had grown up a Reggie Miller guy, but I could no longer pretend I liked watching anyone play this sport more than I enjoyed watching Wade.

“I’m officially out of superlatives for Dwyane Wade,” I wrote early in the 2009-10 season. “What can you say? He’s one of the best players to ever lace ’em up, and his approach to the sport is the most enjoyable form of basketball I’ve ever watched. Sorry, Reggie, but much like my alcoholism, the fact that Flash is my favorite player of all time has been something I’ve been cognizant of for some time — just never admitted publicly.”

(Of note: This was written a little before Thanksgiving of 2009, a time when casual mentions to serious problems like alcoholism seemed reasonable to joke about. I apologize for myself and our society. I would like to think we’ve evolved, although that’s probably just the bubble I live in and things are just as bad, or worse, than ever.)

Nothing is over.

Dwyane showed his greatness, routinely, throughout the 2016 playoffs. Lacking some of his old explosiveness, he had to find some new tricks. This postseason, it was knocking down 3s at a silly rate. He did much more than that, though, leading the Heat, as he had done for well over a decade, in all facets of the game.

But Wade leaving Miami and going to Chicago feels like the end of … something. We’re around the same age, we share a name, and his heroics — and the joy I get watching Dwyane play — are a big reason I started doing what I do.

As far as his decision to leave Miami, what else was Dwyane supposed to do? He took a pay cut in his prime to make room for LeBron and Chris Bosh in an attempt to forge something special for a franchise that until that time belonged, solely, to him. It worked. That team became something incredibly special, going to four straight Finals and winning two rings.

Now he is older and past his prime. He didn’t want to leave, by all accounts, but he wanted his backpay. He was the young man who, as a junior All-Star from a draft class that included obvious Hall of Famers ahead of him, put up one of the best NBA Finals performances in history. Shaq helped, Gary Payton hit a shot that too few people remember, and Antoine Walker had some forgotten, but integral, moments. But it was Flash who brought the franchise its first ring.

That size of that accomplishment can never be overstated. The Heat were in just their 18th year of existence and not even great in the regular season. They lagged behind the Pistons, Spurs, Mavericks and Suns, winning a nice-but-not-scary 52 games in an 82-game season.

But Dwyane got the trophy for a team that shouldn’t have had a trophy. He made the up-jumped Heat, by far, the youngest franchise to ever win a ring.

Miami’s team was founded in 1988, joining the league during the NBA’s expansion era (which some old players think wasn’t watered down, but I digress …)

Before they won the title, the youngest team in possession of a banner were the Portland Trail Blazers, founded almost two decades before Miami in 1970. Even now, the Heat remain — easily — the youngest franchise with a ring. Second place belongs to the Dallas Mavericks, founded in 1980. After that, it is a tie between the Blazers and the Cleveland Cavaliers, both founded 1970. (The Spurs entered the NBA in 1976 when the ABA folded, but they have actually been around as a franchise since 1967.)

In short, this wasn’t something that was done.

The Heat’s non-plural name and of-an-era logo still made the franchise seem like an NBA step-child in 2006. The franchise had earned some credibility by battling with the rough-and-tumble Knicks in the late ‘90s, even getting to an Eastern Conference Finals. But it was still sitting at the same little-kid table with other comically named teams like the Orlando Magic and Toronto Raptors.

Dwyane changed that. Then he made a few great pals and convinced them to come to Southern Florida. And they changed it even further, turning Miami from a young franchise with some promise into one of the best the league has seen this century.

It’s easy to see why Pat Riley is ready to move on. The longer Wade is there, the longer this is a team with a foot halfway in the past.

Regardless, this just seems wrong.

Riley and owner Micky Arison owe Dwyane backpay. It’s bad enough that the league’s best players have their paychecks artificially constrained by labor laws that set a maximum salary. But Wade gave them a discount on top of that.

So now he wanted the money he felt he earned and the status within the organization that he unquestionably deserves. But the Heat, understandably, didn’t want to pay current-day royalties on past greatness.

In a vacuum, I’m sure Arison would love to give Wade a bonus now for what he’s done before. But that’s not how it works. It has to count against the cap and paying Dwyane for his status would probably hold back the team for the next few seasons.

Both sides are entirely justified in acting in their own self interest.

It just sucks is all.

Dwyane belongs in Miami.

It’s his franchise — and always will be.