Not among team captains, Wade won’t rock the boat
ORLANDO It has been 10 years since Dwyane Wade opened a season with the Miami Heat and did not also open it as a team captain.
But with coach Erik Spoelstra confirming Wednesday that he will remain with Udonis Haslem, James Johnson and Goran Dragic as the team’s tricaptains, Wade said he is comfortable without the formal designation.
“I don’t care about that,” Wade said after the Heat completed their morning shootaround at the Amway Center in advance of Wednesday’s season opener against the Orlando Magic. “I’m a leader of this organization. Even when I was captain, I never really looked at it like, ‘Oh, I’m captain.’
“I’m a leader and I’ve been put in that position for a long time and that’s how I look at it.”
Wade, who is retiring after this 16th NBA season, was named a co-captain along with Haslem at the start of the 2008-09 season, a year after Haslem stood as the team’s sole captain. Wade and Haslem remained co-captains through 2014-15, before Chris Bosh was added as a tri-captain in 2015-16.
When Wade left to sign with his hometown Chicago Bulls, Haslem returned as sole captain for 2016-17, with Spoelstra then adding the designation last season for Dragic and Johnson. That did not change when Wade rejoined the team from the Cleveland Cavaliers at the February NBA trading deadline.
“I don’t see a reason to change it right now,” Spoelstra said. “We’re trying to develop leadership at all levels, anyway.”
Spoelstra said he was pleased with last season’s tri-captain approach.
“I liked it,” he said. “But I think the internal leadership concept of leadership at all levels is something we’re trying to develop. But certainly those three guys took big steps in their leadership.”
As with Wade, Haslem said he believes leadership transcends a formal designation.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said, then echoing what Spoelstra apparently has made a talking point. “At this stage of the game, we appreciate leadership on all levels. On any given night, it could mean anybody steps up and leads us or takes that captain role.”
Haslem said Dragic has benefited from the designation he has carried with the Slovenian national team.
“I think it was good for Goran to get out of his shell a little bit and be that guy that we saw over the summer,” he said of Slovenia’s run to the 2017 EuroBasket title. “So Goran, he’s a natural-born leader, as well. It’s just about being comfortable about being vocal.
“It was something that we decided for him to do for us. And him being the team player that he is, he was able to get out of his comfort zone for us.”
Haslem said there were similar benefits with Johnson, who currently is sidelined as he works back from May hernia surgery.
“With J.J., we understand the impact that he has on everybody,” Haslem said. “We just want him to understand that impact that he has on everybody.”