MIAMI -- With just over a minute remaining in his final home game at American Airlines Arena, Dwyane Wade walked to the bench one last time. The crowd, in full throat all night long, rose to its feet, chanting and cheering like they were never going to again. Sixteen years. Three championships. One last dance.
And it all happened in a flash.
"My thoughts are all over the place," Wade said in his on-court interview moments after the final buzzer sounded. "As I sit here, I think about the moment my agent came to the table in New York in 2003 and told me the Heat were about to pick me at [No.] 5."
The Heat beat the 76ers Tuesday night, 122-99, but they were eliminated from playoff contention somewhere around the start of the fourth quarter when it went final that the Pistons had rallied to defeat Memphis. From just about that point forward, a game that was really all about Wade from the start officially went into tribute mode. And man did Wade ever rise to the occasion, finishing with 30 points, many of which were deposited in the pure showman form with which D-Wade has become synonymous.
"I have seen him go into his bag of tricks many times this year and compartmentalize," Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. "But I am truly amazed he was able to perform at that level tonight. All the emotions of the last 48 hours and his whole career reflecting on that. ... It's like you blitzed him with a wave of emotions and then tell him to go win it and put on a show for the fans. It's a gift he's always had, the understanding of the theater of it, the competitive entertainment of it. He has a way of rising to that moment."
"Tonight, I almost lost it a few times," Wade admitted. "The video when Zaire did the same thing I did in the Converse commercial years ago, that almost got me. If I didn't have a game to play, you all would've seen a different Dwyane today."
What Wade is referencing was a truly beautiful video tribute his son, Zaire, paid him before the game. That Converse commercial Wade made back in 2007, it's the top video you can see below. Zaire's reenactment is on the bottom.
Anyone who's a parent, imagine looking up at that scoreboard and watching your child do that. To walk like you. Move like you. To be you. This final home game of D-Wade's, it was about so much more than basketball. It was about relationships -- with his family, with his fans, and certainly with his teammates, every one of which he made a point of naming in his pregame speech, thanking them for being "so gracious" in allowing him to have the spotlight he's enjoyed during this farewell season. Indeed, it's never been Wade's way to make it all about him.
"All this stuff that's been going on this year in all these different NBA cities, all the tributes, just the respect that's being shown for Dwyane, I don't think that's just about him being a great player," longtime Heat broadcaster Tony Fiorentino told CBS Sports a few days before Tuesday's game. "I think fans and all the players realize what a great person he is -- that he always did everything with class. I've said this many times before, but as great a player as Dwyane was, and really still is, he's a better person. You hear that about a lot of guys, but it's sometimes for the cameras, you know what I mean? But with Dwyane, it's true. He's a Hall of Fame person."
Never was this sentiment more evident than in the Budweiser ad that took over Twitter Tuesday. If you haven't seen it, you have to watch this. If you have seen it, watch it again. Send it to your family. To your friends. Remind yourself and everyone around you that when guys like Dwyane Wade take the platform they have and use it to better the world around them, when LeBron James opens a school for underprivileged kids and contributes and generates tens of millions of dollars for their educations, when so many of these NBA players do things for others that you never hear about, that is the real legacy worth honoring.
"I got choked up on that Budweiser video," Spoelstra admitted. "I could barely address the team right after it."
Spoelstra showed the video in the locker room before the team came out. Then there was some business to tend to. Spoelstra said it was a "no-brainer" to start Wade for the first time this season, to let the fans hear his introduction one last time, but there was one other player who might've been playing his final home game as well: Udonis Haslem.
Wade and Haslem will be linked forever when it's all said and done, as close to brothers as teammates can get, and at the end of the third quarter Wade suggested that they start the fourth quarter together. Spoelstra obliged. It was another moment in a night full of moments, and everyone who was in the building, let alone the ones who played in the game, will remember every one of them them forever.
"If someone had told me in middle school that I'd be playing on the same team with D-Wade, in his last [home game] in the NBA, I never would've believed it," Heat center Hassan Whiteside said. "It was crazy, for real."
"I didn't have many jerseys growing up, but I had the all-black D-Wade jersey," Heat forward Justise Winslow said. "It's surreal that I've had this opportunity to play with him and grow with him. He's an icon not only because of the championships, but because of the flair. He did it his way, but he did it in a cool way so that the next generation started idolizing him -- from the padded sleeves to the band-aid under his eye, the fade-away, the Euro-step, him being big in fashion, there are so many trends that he set and did it in a cool way.
"For a young black guy like me, we're constantly looking for guys to look up to and he was that," Winslow continued. "He did it with the utmost humility. He was always humble and never put himself above someone else. But he did it with swag."
Indeed he did. And that swag was again in full effect on Tuesday night. He fell into Chrissy Teigen and John Legend while holding his follow through on one of the 10 3-pointers he launched, four of which he cashed. Wade's wife, Gabrielle Union-Wade, raised her arms and gave him an "atta boy" slap when he drilled a 3 right in front of her. The crowd was going bonkers the whole time.
Back when Wade hit that impossible game-winner to beat the Warriors in late February, I wrote that there was no way to describe the scene, the feeling, inside American Airlines Arena that night. You just had to be there. Tuesday night was the same deal. You just had to be there. The energy, the admiration, the two-way gratitude, from the fans to Wade and vice versa, it was all palpable.
After Wade hit that shot against the Warriors, he leaped onto the scorer's table in vintage Wade fashion and declared Miami, once again, to be his city. One last time, he did it again on Tuesday. But with a little hiccup. Wade said he wanted to jump on the table three times, in keeping with the No. 3 theme of the night, but on his second try, this happened:
It couldn't have been more perfect, actually, calling to mind the other great Wade commercial in which he is seen getting knocked to the ground over and over again, seven times to be exact, only to stand back up eight times. One last time, Wade picked himself up and rose back onto the scorer's table and stood tall. A six-foot-four guard out of Marquette.
"I've talked about it a bit, but it's meant everything," Wade said of his relationship with the city of Miami. "To come here and be embraced, to be able to find a home, to be able to grow. When I was on the court early on and saying let me grow as a player, or with the mistakes I made in my life, this city allowed me to grow. I hope they're proud of what they have helped me become."
