Wade: ‘This book has a lot of Miami in it’
Dwyane Wade’s NBA career won’t soon be forgotten in South Florida.
But in case reminders are needed, the greatest player in Miami Heat history released a photographic memoir titled, “DWYANE,” on Tuesday. The book features more than 200 never-beforeseen photos from his life on and off the court taken by Bob Metelus, who has been documenting Wade for more than a decade. “I think people probably know 80 percent of most things because we share a lot and with the world we live in, too,” Wade said to the Miami Herald. “But the other 20 percent, you try to keep close to your chest as much as possible. Have some sense of normalcy and privacy. But at the same time, I always felt a responsibility to be able to share my experiences for the ones who are going to get something out of it. So that’s what I tried to do once again.”
Wade, 39, will be in Miami this week and is scheduled to attend the Heat’s matchup against the Washington Wizards at FTX Arena on Thursday. It will mark the first Heat game Wade has attended in Miami since he purchased an ownership stake in the Utah Jazz in April.
As part of Wade’s book tour, there will be a popup exhibition Friday and Saturday at The Shop Miami in Wynwood that brings “key moments selected by Dwyane Wade to life.” Wade will also be part of a moderated discussion regarding his photographic memoir Friday night.
“This book has a lot of Miami in it,” said Wade, who moved his life to Southern California after retiring at the end of the 2018-19 season. “It has a lot of history from the Heat. So yeah, I’m looking forward to being there.
“What I always say about what I love about Miami is just the way [it] protected us. They protected my family. They protected me. I had to grow up quickly in the public eye in front of everybody. Mistakes made, imperfect this, all this stuff and they just covered me, man. Protected me and let me make my mistakes. My love goes so deep that it’s in its own category. Nothing else compares to that.”
Here are a few of the interesting anecdotes from Wade’s new book:
Early in the memoir, Wade detailed his memories from the moment Pat Riley stepped down as the Heat’s head coach just days before his rookie season in 2003.
“I remember thinking like were we on ‘Punk?’ ‘Punk’d’ was popping at the time. That was 2003,” Wade said to the Miami Herald with a laugh. “I was like, OK, we must be on ‘Punk’d.’ You know what, it was surreal. You come in and you’re excited as a rookie to be coached by the great Pat Riley and you go through preseason, go through training camp and you’re ready for the first game finally. Then he takes three hours and he says, ‘I’m stepping away.’ I’m like, ‘Wait, what?’ I think the thing that it made me feel is, ‘Oh, am I not enough?’ Like they just drafted me. Did you not see enough in me to make you want to stay around? So I kind of took it personal in that sense. Not to Riles, but more so like I got to show this organization that they drafted somebody worthy.”
In the book, Wade also reflected on the days leading up to the formation of the Heat’s Big 3 during the summer of 2010. They each committed to the Heat on a phone call between the three of them on July 4, 2010.
Chris Bosh and Wade made their decision public just days later on July 7, and LeBron James announced he was joining the Heat on July 8 during a one-hour live special aired on ESPN.
“When you get off a call like that and you guys agree that you’re going to play together. Even though we agreed, you still got to do it,” Wade said to the Miami Herald. “You still got to sign, you still got to go through with it. But to be able to agree and say, ‘You know what, this is what we want to do.’ I knew at that moment that if this comes true that life as we know it will never be the same again. So you’re excited from a basketball standpoint . ... We knew we were embarking on something that was going to shift the culture. So it was exciting to be able to control that destiny and have that ability as three younger Black men in this game to be able to have the power to make a decision like that. That was a big moment.”
How did Wade keep that secret from getting out before they each announced their free agent decision?
“July 4th, I told my wife,” Wade remembers. “My wife didn’t know nothing about it. I didn’t tell her nothing about it until the night of July 4. After I got the call, I came back and we were watching the fireworks. Literally I waited until the fireworks and was like, ‘So, Bron and Chris are coming to Miami.’
“Now at the same time, I still don’t know because I haven’t really talked to Bron. So I really didn’t know. So I had to go watch the TV like everybody else. I was super excited when I finally heard it officially that the move was made.”
Wade also emphasized in the book just how hurt he was entering his final NBA game. He played 36 minutes in that April 10, 2019, game in Brooklyn despite a left knee injury he suffered during his emotional home finale the night before while stumbling as he tried to jump onto the scorer’s table in an effort to recreate his iconic “This is My House” celebration.
“To fall on that scorer’s table like I did and to hurt my knee,” Wade said to the Miami Herald. “I couldn’t try to explode or try to do anything to get the crowd all into it. I had to play so conservative in a sense. I hated it. I hated it. Even though it was a great sendoff, I was like I wish it just ended in Miami. That night was it. That would have been the perfect ending.
“But I was hurting. There was a point where I didn’t think I could play because I went out there to warm up and I couldn’t put any pressure on my knee because I had just did what I did the night before. I don’t know if a lot of people know, I’ve been bone on bone [with my knee] most of my career. There’s nothing in there. So when I fell and bent my knee like that so fast, it just immediately swelled up from the trauma.”
WHAT I LOVE ABOUT MIAMI IS JUST THE WAY [IT] PROTECTED US. THEY
PROTECTED MY FAMILY.