J-Speaks: Wade and James Reunited

For four years with the Miami Heat from 2011-14, LeBron James and Dwyane Wade, along with Chris Bosh led the team to four straight appearances in The NBA Finals and they won two straight championships. They are now on the brink of joining forces again, this time in the Midwest. 

According to a report from ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, the 35-year-old perennial All-Star has agreed to signing the NBA veteran minimum contract a one-year deal, worth $2.3 million to join the Cleveland Cavaliers. 

The deal cannot be made official until 5 p.m. Wednesday, because Wade, who reached a buyout from the Chicago Bulls, on Sunday will be completed. Once that happens, it is presumed that he will announce that he made the choice to reunite with his James, the four-time league MVP, and two-time Finals MVP with the Cavs, Wade, who spent 2016-17 playing for his hometown team said to Tim Reynolds of the Associated Press (AP). 

“I think he brings another championship DNA. A championship pedigree,” James said about the likelihood of Wade joining the Cavs at the team’s Media Day on Monday. “Brings another playmaker to the team, who can get guys involved. That can make plays, and, just has a great basketball mind. I think in it would be great to have him here.”

James and Wade have been close friends since entering “The Association” together in 2003, where James was the No. 1 overall pick by the Cavs, and Wade was the No. 5 overall selection by the Heat. They were teammates with the Heat for four seasons from 2010-14. Won back-to-back titles together in 2012, and 2013, and went to The NBA Finals in each of their four seasons, and remained very close friends, even after James, left in free agency to return to essentially his hometown team, as he is an Akron, OH native.  

Wade also told Reynolds of the AP earlier this week that besides the Cavs, the Oklahoma City Thunder, and the Heat were the other two teams he was considering signing with. 

“Whatever Dwyane does, it’s never, ever going to change how I feel about him, or about our hopes for where he ends up eventually,” Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra said Tuesday after the Heat’s first practice. “Whenever that is…Everybody knows how we all feel about him.”

Heat President Pat Riley, who coached Wade on the Heat’s first championship when they beat the Dallas Mavericks in six games in 2006 has those same sentiments of the player who helped put basketball on the map in South Florida for 13 of his first 14 seasons in the NBA. 

Over the weekend, Riley said in a press conference that besides being absolutely in love with his former player, his best memory is when the won Game 6 at American Airlines Center 11 seasons back, Wade grabbed the rebound off a Jason Terry missed shot and threw the ball into the sky after the final buzzer to clinch the title, and being named Finals MVP. 

“Probably one of the greatest series that any player has ever had in The Finals,” Riley said in describing the 34.7 points Wade averaged in the 2006 Finals, which is the third highest scoring average by a player in his first championship series appearance. 

“So, I feel great about our relationship that we had over the 13 years, and anything that happens from a personnel stand point down the road, or any opportunities that are there, we’re always going to approach that. But, right now he’s under contract with Chicago, and I wish him the very best.”

Wade left the Heat in the summer of 2016 to sign a two-year, $47.5 million deal with his hometown team the Bulls on July 15, 2016. He averaged 18.3 points, the fewest since his rookie season of 2003-04, 4.5 rebounds, and 3.8 assists per game a season ago. 

With the team heading deciding to start over and rebuild after trading All-Star forward Jimmy Butler to the Minnesota Timberwolves during this June’s draft, and letting fellow All-Star lead guard Rajon Rondo go in free agency, they decided not to pay Wade the $23.8 million salary he was set to make this upcoming season, buy him out and let him to sign with a team where he can finish his career on his terms. 

Wade said as much to Reynolds of the AP that the team he decided to sign with would be “purely a basketball decision.”

“I’ll make the one that I feel fits me at this point in my career, and with what I feel I have to offer a team that needs what I have to offer.”

While the Cavs have made it to The Finals the last three seasons in succession, the team dealt All-Star starting floor general Kyrie Irving to the Boston Celtics near the close of last month, and the All-Star the Cavs got back in return in lead guard Isaiah Thomas will be on the shelf until at least January due to a hip injury he sustained against the Cavs in Game 2 of this past seasons’ Eastern Conference Finals. 

The Cavs also signed 2011 league MVP Derrick Rose in the, and will presumably add Wade, who James has made no secret of wanting him to come to Northeast Ohio, will add not just a championship pedigree, but will give them depth, and the ability to make hit teammates better. 

There are two things you can say about Dwyane Wade. He loves to compete, and as Nichols pointed out on her show on Tuesday is not a fan of sitting idly by and watching other people compete. So it's no surprise that he decided to sign with the Cavs, reunite with James, and shoot for his fourth ring, and their third together, likely against the defending NBA champion Golden State Warriors in June. 

While his time with the Bulls might have been for just one season, he left an impression that the whole organization respects and want nothing but the best for him on the final leg of his NBA journey, that will land him in the Hall of Fame once he retires. 

“I want to say Dwyane Wade was very professional entirely through his time here,” Bulls’ Vice President of Basketball Operations John Paxson said this week. “We have nothing but good things to say about him-professional, great player, can still play the game. We wish him well, and we’re happy he’s in a good place, and will find a situation that’s best for him.” 

Information, statistics, and quotations are courtesy of 9/22/17 11 p.m. edition of NBATV’s “Gametime,” with Matt Winer, Steve Smith, and Dennis Scott; 9/26/17 Bottom Line news crawl from ESPN 2 at 8 p.m.; 9/26/17 www.nba.com article, via The Associated Press, “Report: Dwyane Wade To Sign One-Year Deal with Cleveland Cavaliers,” by Tim Reynolds;  9/27/17 3 p.m. edition of “NBA: The Jump,” on ESPN, with Rachel Nichols, Israel Gutierrez, and Scottie Pippen; http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwyane_Wade; and http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LeBron_James.