The most accomplished player to ever wear a Miami Heat uniform was none other than franchise icon Dwyane Wade, who won three championships during his legendary tenure with the franchise. Two of those championships came alongside LeBron James and Chris Bosh after the three joined forces on the Heat in 2010, and now, Wade is shedding light on the personal sacrifices he made to help the team win after they came up short in their first year together.
Recently, The NBA Realist on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, posted a series of statistics showing Wade’s dominance during the 2011 playoffs, which marked the Big Three’s first year together. Despite Wade’s dominance that postseason, the Heat ended up bowing out to the Dallas Mavericks in the NBA Finals.
Wade quote-tweeted the original post on X, noting that “after this series I approached my career differently and we ended up holding two more [championships] over our heads!”
Indeed, in the next two playoff runs for Miami, Dwyane Wade was willing to take more of a backseat to LeBron James, who of course struggled mightily during the 2011 Finals. James would go on to take home the next two Finals MVPs, helping Wade deliver the franchise its most recent two titles in the process before the team came up short in 2014 and James departed for Cleveland the following offseason.
Still, Wade’s willingness to sacrifice his personal statistics for the good of the team is part of the reason he is so beloved in South Beach.
More must-reads: