What would Wade do?
Heat guard rules out Bryant-style farewell tour
Heat star isn’t thinking retirement, even as Kobe exits.
LOSANGELES— For AlonzoMourning, it ended limping off the court on Dec. 19, 2007, after suffering a devastating knee injury in a road game against the Atlanta Hawks. For TimHardaway, it ended with a trade to the Dallas Mavericks on Aug. 22, 2001.
The only retirement tours the Miami Heat have been part of have involved opposing players, whether it was Kareem Abdul-Jabbar being presented with a piece of Haitian sculpture at Miami Arena on March 8, 1989 or Michael Jordan’s jersey being raised to the AmericanAirlines Arena rafters on April 11, 2003.
So with the Heat about to pay their final respects Wednesday night to Kobe Bryant at Staples Center, with the Los Angeles Lakers’ guard retiring at season’s end, Dwyane Wade was asked if he could envision one day having a retirement tour of his own.
The irony with Bryant’s retirement tour is that the Heat — or at least the organization as a whole — had no idea that the Lakers’ Nov. 10 appearance at AmericanAirlines Arena would be his last with the team. Yet the night before that appearance, Bryant askedWade to make sure he had his family in attendance, confiding that he had made his decision to retire, with a formal announcement imminent.
At 34, Wade is just three years younger than Bryant, albeit without nearly as much NBA mileage, Bryant having arrived to the NBA directly out of high school, playing deep into the playoffs annually until recent seasons.
For the moment, Wade said he is not thinking about the possibility of a retirement tour of his own, certainly not as he again heads into free agency this summer.
But he has thought plenty about Bryant’s.
“I think for Kobe, this is great,” he said. “I think for a lot of us, I think why it’s so great for Kobe is because for most of his career he’s not known to have friends, not known to be smiling.
“Even though the world is Lakers fans, most opponents boo him because of how great he was. So I think it’s great to see everything coming full circle. I think that’s why this farewell tour has been so great for Kobe.”
Wade said he could not envision himself in the same sphere as Bryant, playing to regular tributes before and after games.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t sit back and say, ’Oh, when I retire.’ I’m not that cocky to say, ’I want a farewell tour when I retire.’ For me, that’s a little too cocky of a mindset to have, thinking I’m that important, that I should get a farewell tour.”
For Bryant, the end crystallized amid early-season discomfort, after consecutive seasons of significant injuries. For Wade, there has been a bounce back this season from the types of ailments that had limited him in recent years.
Just lastweek, San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said of Wade: “What’s amazing about Dwyane is he looks physically like he used to. There was a time when one wondered if Father Time caught up. But he’s grown out of it. He figured out a way to keep his athleticism. The longer he’s around, that’s great for the league.”
Wade said the type of enduring success that Popovich has been able to produce in San Antonio, and perhaps a similar revival in Miami, is what could drive him to put off type retirement, unlike the way the Lakers have languished at the bottom of the standings in recent years.
“I guess the kind of team you’re on, whether you’re playing good basketball or not playing good basketball,” Wade said of the primary determinants of any career end game. “I think it’s easy for Tim Duncan to come in every year because theyhave a very good team, and he knows that his role can be limited and he wants to be around that and what they’re doing.
“So I know team is important on it. Health is important on it. If you’re not hurting every time you get on the floor, is important on that. And I think family would be the third thing, kind of how your family is feeling. So are you being too selfish by continuing to keep going, keep going, keep going? Or are you not?”
With Bryant, it has meant going out as leading man, still the featured attraction on Lakers’ game nights. For Wade, the subtle transition to supporting player began while playing alongside LeBron James and Chris Bosh, making it easier to envision prolonging his career in a complementary role ... or of simply retiring without ceremony, which would continue a Heat trend.
“It just depends on what role it is,” he said. “I don’t have that big ego to be that guy to say, ’I will never do this. I will never do that.’ I don’t have to. It could come to a point I could just say, ’You knowwhat? I’m done.’ I don’t have that big of an ego.”