You’d have to look far and wide to find someone that have a huge amount of respect for Dwyane Wade. Over his 16-year career Flash has cemented himself as one of the greats of the game. Over his career, he’s averaged 22.3 points, 4.7 rebounds and 5.5 assists with 1.6 steals and nearly a block as well.
He’s won 3 NBA titles, a Finals MVP, 12 All-Star Selections, 8 All-NBA honors and 3 All-Defensive honors. He is the Miami Heat’s best ever player and it’s only fitting that he ends his career with the team that drafted him all those years ago.
How things might have been different. We now know that had circumstances been different at the 2003 NBA draft when the Heat selected Wade at number 5 then Wade might have ended up somewhere else.
According to Doc Rivers, the Orlando Magic and the Miami Heat had agreed to a trade swap that year if Miami didn’t get who they wanted at the 5th pick. The Heat didn’t say who they wanted to Miami for obvious reasons but the Magic really wanted to get Dwyane Wade.
Doc Rivers said that Orlando and Miami had an agreement for a trade swap at the 2003 draft if Miami didn’t get their guy at No. 5 (they wouldn’t disclose who). Orlando was hoping to acquire Dwyane Wade. Wade fell to No. 5, Miami called Orlando and said Wade had been their guy.
— Jovan Buha (@jovanbuha) December 9, 2018
Wade was a junior coming from Marquette and had averaged 21.5 points, 6.3 rebounds, and 4.4 assists and led Marquette to the Final Four for the first time since 1977. Had Wade gone higher up in the draft he might have never played with Shaq in Miami. Although Chris Bosh was a great player for the Toronto Raptors there’s no doubt that Toronto wished they had drafted Dwyane Wade.
With Wade not in Miami, there would have been no Shaquille O’Neal in South Beach and no title in 2006. The Heat should count themselves very lucky that Wade fell as far as he did.
