Wade buyout talks likely
Ex-Heat star acknowledges reality of his contract status
In the wake of several Miami Heat players expressing a desire for a Dwyane Wade return to the franchise he helped lift to three NBA titles, the veteran guard said his career goal remains championship contention if there is to be a buyout from the Chicago Bulls.
Wade, who spent the first 13 seasons of his career with the Heat only to depart to the Bulls in 2016 free agency, has one year, at $23.8 million, remaining on his Chicago contract.
Appearing at the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass., to receive the Mannie Jackson Human Spirit Award for his offcourt contributions, Wade indicated that buyout talks could be forthcoming.
“What’s funny,” he said during an NBA TV interview, “is I haven’t said anything. It’s been a lot of things that have been said. I haven’t said anything and it’s a reason for that. I’m not about the going back and forth. A lot of people make it that way. But I’m not about the going back and forth. When the time is right for me and the Chicago Bulls organization to sit down and talk about the future, we will do that.
“The time hasn’t been right, obviously, to this point. But I’ll be in Chicago soon enough and hopefully we’ll get an opportu-
nity to sit down and just talk about the future and the direction and go from there. I’m 35 years old. I’m a grown man. I can definitely sit across the room from you and listen to your truth and hopefully hear mine and go from there.”
NBA training camps open Sept. 26.
“All I know is training is coming up and I’m preparing for training camp,” he said. “I’m under contract with the Bulls right now, and that’s what I’m preparing for. The future, you don’t worry about it too much. You’ve got people to do that; you’ve got people to talk about it. For me, my job is to prepare for being the best Dwyane Wade at the age of 35 that I can be and everything else will take care of itself.”
Wade has spent the offseason away from Chicago, including time in South Florida, where his children have been enrolled in school.
While the Heat are expected to return to playoff contention this season following a 30-11 close to 2016-17 that left them at 41-41 and a tiebreaker shy of the playoffs — a tiebreaker lost to Wade’s Bulls — Wade indicated interest in a higher level of competition.
“Obviously, everyone wants to be, it’s no secret, we would all love to compete for a championship,” he said, having won titles with the Heat in 2006, ’12 and ’13, appearing in five NBA Finals with the team. “At the end of my career, that’s one thing that I would love to do. I’m not in a position right to do that. So, I can’t talk about what that preference is. So, obviously, hopefully one day, before I get done playing this game, I can be back in a position where I get to compete for a championship.”
But he also left the door open to move in another direction.
“It’s no secret, and everyone knows that. I’ve been lucky,” he said. “First of all, I’ve been in five Finals. So if I never go to another one, I can’t complain. But I would love to. I would love to because I feel that I can add something to a team that is in that position.
“But that’s not something that I can focus on and something that I can worry about. Right now, the only thing I can focus on and I can control, what I can control is my ability to be ready to play the game of basketball at the highest level that I can each year and year out. Right now, that’s all I can focus on.”
With their offseason signings of Dion Waiters, James Johnson, Kelly Olynyk and other moves, the Heat are operating above the 2017-18 NBA salary cap, with only a $4.3 million exception remaining beyond minimum salaries to offer. The Heat have filled 18 of their 20 training-camp spots, with teams required to trim to 15 by the start of the regular season.
Among Heat players who have said they would embrace a Wade return have been Waiters, Hassan Whiteside and team captain Udonis Haslem, who recently vacationed with Wade in Greece.
For his part, Wade said he has been transfixed by an offseason that already has seen players such as Paul George, Kyrie Irving, Isaiah Thomas, Chris Paul, Gordon Hayward and former Bulls teammate Jimmy Butler move to new teams.
“The NBA was allyear-round this year for the first time that I can remember in a long time,” he said. “And a lot of moves were made. And it’s all about the entertainment of it.
“It’s always about the what-ifs. But right now it’s not the what-ifs. Everyone has seen what can happen. I don’t know if the moves that were made right now, this year, are going to make a difference from the standpoint of the Cleveland, Golden States of the world. But eventually teams are building themselves to put themselves in a great position. So I love moves that unfortunately my teammate is in Minnesota, but I love what Minnesota has done this summer. I think they’ve had the best summer of a lot of people. But you can see now the teams that are planning for the next five years in the game.”