Dwyane Wade is downplaying milestone of 1,000 games
By Cody Rivera
Dwyane Wade doesn’t view it as anything special, but 1,000 games is a pretty big milestone to reach in the NBA.
Dwyane Wade has had an illustrious career in the NBA, and he’s a surefire Hall of Famer. He’ll be remembered as one of the best, if not the best, players to ever wear a Miami Heat uniform.
Wade has played more games for Miami (893) than any other player, and when the Heat take on the Los Angeles Clippers at Staples Center on Saturday night, he will hit the milestone of 1,000 career games.
Plenty of players have hit that milestone before, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t an impressive accomplishment. If you’ve played 1,000 games in the NBA, you’ve dedicated a lot of years, a very large portion of your life, to playing the highest form of professional basketball in the world.
But Wade isn’t looking at it that way.
“I don’t even know the significance of 1,000 games,” Wade said, via NBA.com. “I don’t know if it’s a big deal. I think it’s just another number.”
It might be just another number, but it’s one that just adds to what was already a Hall of Fame career. Wade is currently playing his 16th season in the NBA, and all but one and a half of those seasons have been with the Heat. He spent one year playing for his hometown Chicago Bulls in 2016-17, then spent half of the next season with the Cleveland Cavaliers before being traded back to Miami.
Wade has reached the pinnacle of the NBA multiple times as well, having won three championships with the Heat, including being named Finals MVP in 2006.
He plans on retiring after this season, and even though he doesn’t view 1,000 games as anything too extravagant, it’s still something to behold.
“He’s showed an incredible amount of perseverance and resiliency,” said Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra. “That might be one of the main things that I’ll preach and teach to young players, to be able to show the grit it takes. The second thing, which is just as important about Dwyane, is he reinvented himself and committed so much off the court so that he could perform and be heathy and play how he wanted to play.”
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Wade is one of the NBA’s all-time greats, both on and off the court, and the milestone of 1,000 games is just one of many things that proves it.