Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Spoelstra: Wade’s elbow injury is ‘heartbreaking’
Former teammates have stayed close to iconic player
MIAMI — For a moment at Thursday’s Miami Heat practice at AmericanAirlines Arena, it was as if Dwyane Wade was a teammate again. Because in the wake of the elbow injury that will keep the Chicago Bulls guard out for at least the balance of the regular season, he was in just about everyone’s thoughts.
“That’s heartbreaking,” coach Erik Spoelstra said shortly after the Bulls announced Wade would be out for the rest of the regular season with a small fracture and sprain of his right elbow. “I don’t know what to say. Even as competitors — and we’re battling right now with Chicago — you want to see everybody out there right now. You don’t want to see anybody getting hurt. I know how much this game means to Dwyane. I’m going to reach out to him.
“I mean, I hope I’m hearing the news wrong.”
The Bulls stand one game behind the Heat, in 10th place in the East, in the race for one of the conference’s eight playoff seeds, with 14 games to play in the regular season, which ends April 12.
“One thing I know about Dwyane is that he’s going to find a way to be motivated by this,” said forward Udonis Haslem, who spent the previous 13 season as Wade’s Heat teammate, with the two entering the NBA as Heat rookies in 2003. “The timing is terrible. You never want to see anybody get hurt.
“Obviously him being a friend of mine and not just another player in this league, it’s a little more heartfelt to see him get hurt.”
Wade, 35, left the Heat last summer for a two-year, $47 million free-agent contract with the Bulls. He holds a $23.8 million player option with the Bulls for next season.
The irony, guard Goran Dragic said, is that it was Wade who had texted him just two days earlier after Dragic sustained a gruesome eye injury.
“I saw the Bulls highlights and saw that he got injured and I texted him,” Dragic said. “He had texted me two days before about my eye.”
Dragic said the kinship developed after being acquired by the Heat from the Phoenix Suns at the 2015 trading deadline withstood last summer’s parting, with Dragic, like others on the team, retaining a close relationship with the most iconic presence in the franchise’s 29 seasons.
“You develop the friendship, the chemistry and you want those guys to be successful even if they’re on the other team,” Dragic said. “I’m always going to remember D-Wade.
“People were saying he and I didn’t get along. That’s not true. He helped me a lot with the transition. It’s not easy when you switch teams in the middle of the season. He was always there for me and tried to make my job easier.”
And then Dragic offered what has stood as the unsaid inside the Heat locker room since last July’s sudden parting: “You never know. Hopefully he comes back and retires here.” “I looked around: DWade in the building, or what?” he said. “It means something, because the fans, they recognize the hard work.”
Dragic closed with 33 points in the victory.
“Just one of those special moments,” Spoelstra said, “the fans acknowledging the level of play that he’s playing at.”
James Johnson