Dwyane Wade’s five greatest moments for the Miami Heat

3. Scoring Champion

At this point, D-Wade was already a superstar in the league and an NBA champion. However, after dealing with some injuries in 2007 and 2008, doubt began growing about the remainder of his career. The doubt was so great that a Converse commercial was filmed with Wade entitled “Same Day, Same Story.” The commercial showed him waking up at the same time at different points in his career. Each time that we woke up, some form of radio criticism played about him. It ranged from his academic problems as a Marquette recruit to his then-current injury issues. The commercial ended with the statement, “Wade’s belief is stronger than your doubt.” It was the perfect television ad for what Wade was about to do that season.

Wade’s campaign to prove of all his doubters wrong was actually foreshadowed in the Olympics that year. Surrounded by a star-laden roster that included Kobe Bryant, he led Team USA in scoring on their way to the gold medal. His scoring barrage continued for the next 10 months through the NBA regular season. He finished as the top scorer that year with an average of 30.2 points per game.

His greatest performance during that season was against the New York Knicks. Wade was literally unstoppable in that game and finished with 55 points, nine rebounds and four assists. It was and still is a career-high for Wade . What was even crazier about this game was he had 50 points at the end of the third quarter. He was easily on a pace for 60-plus, but Erik Spoelstra wisely held him out of the fourth quarter for safety reasons.

By becoming a scoring champion, Wade was able to check off another historic accolade on his resume. It made his case to become a future Hall of Famer much stronger and  is one of the crowning achievements in his career.