Current sports culture deems it morally wrong to feel anything but ill will towards anyone or anything related to the Miami Heat. As much as you try to fight it, the Heatles, and their overwhelmed leader Erik Spoelstra, will always be there to drag the detestation right back out of you. From "The Decision," to Chris Bosh publicly acting like his arrival was what the public actually cared about, to LeBron James' "karma" tweets, all the way to the most recent "Crygate" incident, there have been very few stories out of Miami this season that evoke any semblance of sympathy.
The Miami Heat have rewritten history this season. Never has such a polarizing team been polarizing on such a diverse level. In the past, villainous teams carried a certain stigma that was dependent on one characteristic. Whether it has been the Yankees' elitist attitude, the Raiders' "bad boy" image throughout the 70s and 80s, or Duke's whiteness, there has always been a single characteristic that epitomized each polarizing team. The Heat have broken that trend this season and have done something remarkable in the process, the entire franchise has become polarizing. The team itself it too overconfident, the coach is too naive, the star is too cocky, the butler talks like he is the sidekick, the role players (who couldn't get a job anywhere else) get fined for inappropriate gestures and flagrant fouls, and for some reason, the franchise suddenly has fans. Only one person associated with the Heat has remained out of his deserved spotlight and flown under the radar, I present to you, Dwyane Wade.
In a season where his game should have suffered after going from lone ranger to team player, Dwyane Wade has transformed his game better than LeBron James and Chris Bosh have combined. By no measure is he having his best statistical season but he is average a career high shooting percentage and, for a team that has struggled rebounding the basketball, Wade is having a career year in crashing the boards. While LeBron gets all of the attention, the Heat have actually followed the trends of Wade more than James. Wade's statistics have been at their best this season in wins and the team clearly thrives on his leadership.
So why is the spotlight not on Wade, and more importantly, why does he seem impervious to the ridicule? The easy explanation as to why the spotlight has not shone on him is that it has been too focused on LeBron's attention-whore-ness and Chris Bosh's pathetic-attempt-at-acting-like-I-seriously-think-it-is-the-"Big Three"-ness. The deeper, more relevant explanation is that the spotlight has never really been on Wade. Sure Dwyane has prominent good marketing deals with T-Mobile and Converse, and he certainly gets credit within basketball circles for his on-court excellence, but it is rare that a sure-fire top-5 player/talent in the NBA is not a household name. He gets his due credit for leading the Heat to the title in 2006, but in all of the biggest headlines coming out of Miami that season, where the number 3 was supposed to be there was a 34, and where "Wade" was supposed to be there was "O'Neal." It is not Dwyane's fault, nor is it the fault of the media. Wade is a quiet guy and without a boisterous personality, it is difficult to grab the media focus (just ask Tim Duncan).
More importantly, why do none of these headlines criticizing the Heat ever seem to focus on Dwyane Wade? Maybe it's because Wade does not deserve to be criticized... The fact of the matter is that none of the Heat players deserve to be criticized for their production this season (besides a few terrible games by the raptor). The only reason the on-court play has drawn criticism is because of the off-court self-promotion and over-confidence. Big free-agent signees holding a press conference is not abnormal, neither is giving interviews as a group or even stating a desire to win titles (see Boston). What is abnormal, is holding an hour-long special to announce your occupational choices, holding a 10,000 person in-arena party celebrating your arrival before you even fill out your roster, taking credit for successes but excusing the blame for failures, publicly telling the fans of a franchise that supported you whole-heartedly for 7 years that their subsequent humiliation can be chalked up to karma, and a coach trying to save his own job by throwing his players' reputations under the bus. Notice that none of those focus in on Dwyane Wade. Everything that the Heatles have been criticized for this season that Dwyane Wade has been a part of, has been a joint issue.
Not only has Wade not received independent criticism this season, but he hasn't deserved to. He has been consistently effective on the court, he has kept his mouth shut off the court, he is undeniably one of the hardest workers in the game today, and he is a good role model. Dwyane deserves no criticism, but rather he deserves sympathy. He has kept his mouth shut even when you know he knows he should be getting the ball in crunch time instead of LeBron, he has not dropped a 1-18 in an important game on national television (a la Chris Bosh's world-class effort against the Bulls), and he didn't make a fool of himself before the season even started. Most importantly, Wade is clearly upset by the criticism that he does not feel his team deserves. After a tough loss to the Bulls on Sunday, Wade said "The Miami Heat are exactly what everyone wanted, losing games. The world is better now because the Heat is losing." The Heatles have become the villians of the league this season and it is tough to say that it isn't their own doing, but the fact of the matter is, Dwyane Wade did not sign up for the antagonist role and he clearly isn't fit for it.
No comments:
Post a Comment