Trade should lift team's psyche
Heat’s top all-time player should end his career where it started.
Group hug, everybody.
Short of winning another
NBA title, the stunning Thursday afternoon trade that brought Dwyane Wade back to Miami is the greatest emotional touchstone this franchise could give its fans.
Think of all you get here.
1) The most decorated player in Heat history, seemingly lost forever in the foul tide of free agency, is returning to AmericanAirlines Arena for what certainly will be the last stop of his NBA career.
2) Wade no longer is a team-
mate of LeBron James, a temporary arrangement that unsettled stomachs around here much worse than the sight of D-Wade in a Chicago uniform.
3) The wall that existed between Wade and Heat godfather Pat Riley has been torn down and a beautiful garden of memories can grow again
where it once stood.
That’s a whole lot of payoff for one deal involving a 36-year-old guard who started just three games for Cleveland this year, but Wade has never been about the numbers alone. He’s a symbol of so many good things for Miami, and that predates The Big Three phenomenon.
What happens now for the Heat of 2018 is less glorious. With Wade, they will find a way into the playoffs and find their way out pretty quickly. It would have been the same, to be honest, without him.
How much fun will it be, however, to break out those old No. 3 jerseys from the back of the closet, the ones with mustard stains from that concession-stand hot dog wolfed down before
Game 3 of the 2006 NBA Finals, the night that
Wade scored 42 points to start Miami toward its first title, as well as tear stains from July of 2016, when he signed with the Bulls, feeling unappreciated by Riley?
The only thing left to hope for is a first-round playoff pairing with Cleveland.
Dwyane and LeBron are still best buddies. In fact, they both reportedly were consulted on Thursday’s trade, a chance to get Wade the kind of playing time that was being denied him while a Cav. Maybe there’s even a chance to like LeBron a little bit again, if that’s true, but only after booing him and cheering Wade at equally ridiculous decibel levels in the crucible of the postseason.
As for Erik Spoelstra, the former assistant coach who worked directly with Wade on his jump-shooting skills so long ago, this is the end of wondering who will take the last shot in close games. Wade does that. For good or for bad, and remember that this season Wade is nearly 90 points shy of his careerbest .545 shooting percentage, closing is what he was born to do.
What is the best that could come of this?
Well, in Wade’s rookie season, he led a 42-40 Heat team to the second round of the playoffs, and that team had one fewer All-Star than this one does in Goran Dragic.
I’m not counting on anything like that, nor is it logical to expect that anyone in Cleveland is feeling particularly wounded by Wade’s departure. The Cavs will go on without him, and they’ll be better equipped to win a title following Thursday trades that did not involve Wade at all.
For now, let’s just say that the best thing that could come out of this reunion is the burst of enthusiasm it already has sent through Miami’s fan base, and the sheer joy that will come with seeing Wade back in the Heat lineup Friday night at the arena.
It’s the perfect salve for sore attitudes during a five-game losing streak, and the ultimate answer to why anyone should be investing additional energy in a team that is not constructed to do much damage this spring.
Getting Tim Hardaway at the trade deadline in 1996 was a bigger deal for Riley, but this transaction is a better one for the overall psyche of the franchise.
Miami-Wade County has its mayor back, and now, finally, happily, he may be proclaimed mayor-for-life.