Dwyane Wade Bats For Kobe Bryant, Lambasts Bleacher Report For Erasing His Legacy

Newer NBA fans now have no idea, but Dwyane Wade and Kobe Bryant had an intense rivalry with each other. As the greatest shooting guards after Michael Jordan, both Bryant and Wade did a lot of jockeying to nail the spot of the best 2 guard in the NBA during the mid and late-00s and the early-10s. Wade put in the best Finals performance of the 21st century as a third year player in 2006, and Bryant rivaled it in 2009.

When Bryant won the NBA title in 2010 and secured his fifth ring, Dwyane Wade was miffed. He texted LeBron James and Chris Bosh and got the duo to move to South Beach and form the Heatles in their prime. Bryant could’ve won three NBA titles on the run had he beaten the Big 3 Celtics in the 2008 Finals. Wade didn’t want the gap between the two to widen, which is why he got Pat Riley to make the move.

Having been a teammate of Kobe Bryant at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Wade also saw, up close and personal, how hard the Lakers legend worked to maintain his level of play, and how much work he put in. Wade has always been effusive in his praise for the Black Mamba after his retirement, before and after his death.

So when Bleacher Report ranked Bryant 11th all-time among NBA players, Wade jumped in to have his say:

If you wanna ask us hoopers who played against Kobe, all of us are gonna talk top 3 (of all time). But someone’s opinion that’s never played against Kobe, who’ve never played the game of basketball at the level that we play it at, having him at 11, why am I up in arms about something like that?

Wade also pointed out the media agenda against Bryant during his playing days:

I remember when Kobe was alive. They had rankings when he played in the league and they had him low, I remember one year, and Kobe addressed it, like, ‘Who is these idiots? Like why would I listen to these idiots?’