Dwyane Wade misses a dunk, all of humanity winces
By Ian Levy
Dwyane Wade will lead Monday morning blooper reels with this painful missed dunk in Game 1 of the Bulls’ playoff series with the Celtics.
There was a time when Dwyane Wade was an electric athlete, seemingly unbound by the physical laws of gravity. An integral part of the Miami Heat’s Flying Death Machine, his career is littered with eye-popping poster dunks. That was then. This is now.
Present-day Dwyane Wade is a 35-year old veteran with more than 32,000 NBA minutes under his belt. Those legs don’t have quite the same lift that they used to.
Ouch. Having performed this exact non-dunk numerous times on the nine-foot hoop in my neighbor’s driveway I can say definitively that the best way to handle this embarrassment is to fake an injury. You land. You grab your hamstring. You start wincing and hopping. When your friends run over to ask if you’re okay, you wave them off and pretend that the pain is to great to summon coherent speech. Then you limp back to your house, or at least behind the hydrangea where they can’t see you any more.
For all his veteran savvy, Wade didn’t seem to have any idea how to handle this one. He just turned around and headed back up the court to play some more of his patented “defense.” A walking, talking, non-dunking, human shoulder shrug emoji.
Watching your idols become human is never a fun process but Wade is well down that road. He played a career-low in minutes per game this season and the Bulls went on their playoff-clinching run when Wade missed time with a fractured elbow. Aging is ugly, missed dunks are embarrassing. Death. Taxes. Etcetera.
Next: NBA Playoffs 2017: 5 keys to Celtics vs. Bulls matchup
Wade will have at least three more games against the Boston Celtics to wage his losing battle against the undefeated Father Time. Stay tuned to see how things turn out.