Dwyane Wade was the NBA’s most human superstar

Photo by Albert Dickson/Sporting News via Getty Images via Getty Images

Remembering the brilliant career of Dwyane Wade, the perfect alpha for his NBA generation.

It’s hard to put in perspective at the end of his long and decorated career, but Dwayne Wade, inducted into the NBA Hall of Fame last week, might be the least likely superstar of his generation. He has one of the most devastating first steps in the history of basketball, “freakish athleticism” and arms long enough to scratch his knees standing straight up, but that’s basically it, in terms of elite skills. He’s 6’4 in shoes (there was some speculation pre-draft he was 6’2, I’ve done some professional Google image search analysis and settled on 6’3) and has no outside shot. With the exception of his friend, the maestro Chris Paul, he is perhaps the most mortal of the Gods he went to war with in his career.

What makes writing a love letter to Wade so difficult is he doesn’t have that singular quality all of his peers had that made them special. Not a distance shooter’s hand eye or touch, not the size or brute strength of some of the post bigs he played alongside, not the godlike court vision of the game’s greatest floor generals. But if you were at a bar with any of the superstars of Wade’s generation, and there was a beautiful woman nursing a cosmo at the end of that bar, Wade would doubtlessly come away with her number. His unusual superpower is elite confidence. If he sucked at basketball it would be easy to have imagined him going into politics, and perhaps he still may. He is a fearless leader of men.

Consider who Wade was drafted behind in 2003: LeBron James, a 6’8 point forward God out of high school who is the greatest basketball player who ever lived, Darko Milicic, an 18-year-old prototypical 7-foot preview of the stretchy Euro big who ended up being bad but suggested what the future would look like, Carmelo Anthony, a freshman who had just won an NCAA title, close in size and skill to LeBron, one of the most talented and fluent scorers we’ve ever seen, and Chris Bosh, another big who could slot anywhere on the floor. This is where the league was heading, positionless offensive monsters with unconventional body types and refined skill sets. By comparison Wade was a charming throwback, an undersized slasher who lived at the rim and most reasonable people thought would make his living in the league as a role playing scorer with elite athleticism. This 2003 scouting report projects a ceiling of Gilbert Arenas, and a floor of Keyon Dooling, and suggests if he didn’t have superhuman athleticism he’d project as a second rounder.

That same scouting report theorized Wade could land with his native Chicago at No. 7, or with his collegetown Bucks at No. 8, but had him likely landing towards the back of the lottery in double digits. Pat Riley reached for him at No. 5, so let’s briefly consider what Pat saw. Wade’s breakout performance came in the NCAA tournament in 03 with a triple double in an Elite 8 blowout win against heavily favored, red hot Keith Bogans era Kentucky, here are some highlights:

The 29 points is something to think about, adding the 11 assists in an 83-point game is impressive as well. But what I would pay attention to is the 11 rebounds, which was more than any one player on Kentucky and trailed only his 6’10 teammate for most in the game. What it showed, early on, before the days of guards like ****** ******** packing box scores, was Wade had an intrinsic knack that comes around something like once or twice a generation, to know exactly what is needed to win a game on a given night, and be well rounded enough to do it organically. When Wade grabs 11 boards you don’t think that he set out to grab 11 boards, you think his team needed exactly 11 boards to win.

Like Jordan (who he studied as a kid) and Kobe before him, like LeBron with him, like Jimmy Butler after him, Wade reduces basketball at its highest level to a Soze-esque question of desire and determination. (To me, the epitomy of Wade is he has the most blocks for a player 6’4 or under in NBA history) But what made him truly special is the packaging. Each of those players I just named are theoretically within two inches of each other, while Wade is a full head + shorter and in every case but one, significantly less skilled. This makes Dwayne Wade both the least, and the most human of them, and of us. It’s why there’s a chance he is best understood as less of a comp with those Mount Rushmore talents than as a Russian nesting doll between the larger and less skilled brute Butler, and the smaller, faster, maddening and tantalizing player he faced in his first game as a pro, who he chose his number in honor of and who he had induct him into the Hall of Fame, Allen Iverson (Wade was better than both). They’re all strivers who, with the possible exception of Iverson, made the most of their talent.

His game necessitated complete and total commitment to every play, but even before he made the league his body began to betray him. In college, Wade made the fateful decision to have his meniscus removed, a surgery that may have drastically truncated his prime and left him standing outside the inner sanctum of all-time greatness he may have crashed. One thing I can tell you is on the court, he never sacrificed so much as a single bucket or drawn foul in deference to that knee. It was an injury that would return every few years, sidelining him for what felt like it could be the last time, every time for a guy who relied so much on his quickness, and yet every time he returned.

The signature moment in Wade’s career came early, in the 2006 NBA Finals where as a 24-year-old, he had arguably the most dominant Finals series in NBA history. He averaged 34 points, nearly eight rebounds and nearly four assists in the slowest paced Finals ever. He was everywhere and did everything, bringing the Heat back from 0-2 to win in six games, with three of those wins coming with a combined margin of six total points. What was special was when and how he broke the Mavericks, grinding their wills to dust with his constant deluge, forcing contact that yielded a stunning 97 free throws. Dwayne said he was the best version of himself in that series, and he was right, but he forgot to mention few have ever been better. Here’s a clip package:

What I will respect the most when I think about Wade is his dynamism. All the players I’ve mentioned in this piece, his “comps”, are somewhere between backstage megalomaniacal divas and straight up monsters, players who layered every chip they could find on their own shoulders, they had to in order to get the absolute max out of themselves on the court. Wade seems to be one of the few players in this strata of elites who was able to move through every role on the court and every chapter in his career with grace. He went from the focal point of his city and franchise to a willing Robin when LeBron came to join his team, at one point having to sit LeBron down and insist that the team had to belong to LeBron for them to fulfill their ambitions. Was it common sense? Absolutely. Was it an admission any NBA superstar would be willing to make in their prime? Less likely. He was never intimidated by anyone or anything, including the necessity of accepting his limitations in the interest of winning. That’s real greatness.

Of the legends he joins in the Hall of Fame, Wade seems like the best hang offcourt, he appears to be in a happy and stable celebrity relationship, and for all the impressive stats he has on his resume, the accomplishment I will always appreciate the most is what an enlightened and supportive father he has been to his daughter, who has dealt with criticism and vicious cruelty at the hands of anonymous internet assholes I couldn’t even fathom. Professional male athletes have historically not been the most inclusive and accepting community, and Wade could care less, because his approach to life is very much aligned with his approach to basketball.