To the surprise of many, future hall of Famer and three-time NBA champion Dwyane Wade left the Miami Heat to join the hometown Chicago Bulls. Considering Wade spent his first 13 seasons in South Beach, it was expected for him to go out ala Kobe Bryant and Tim Duncan.
However, Wade was tired of being low-balled, which is very understandable. After all, he’s the greatest player in franchise history and he’s never been the highest paid player on the team once during his career.
NBA mogul and Heat President Pat Riley regrets how everything went done. Often times in life, we wish there was a reset button. Riley is no different.
If we ever had to do it again — and Andy (Elisburg, the Heat’s Senior VP of Basketball Operations and General Manager) bang our fists on the table — if we ever had to do it again, when LeBron left (in 2014), we should have given Chris the max, and Dwyane the max. And that was it. Instead of trying to say to Dwayne, I want to get another guy for you, but you have to sacrifice. And that was wrong. I should have given him — we should have given him — that then. Now, that’s a big second guess. But that’s on me. If I could have pushed that, and I could have pushed that. But I didn’t. I said we need to get more talent for him. But somebody was going to sacrifice. Like I said before, it doesn’t matter what happens to you, it’s how you deal with it. And we’re dealing with it. He’s dealing with it.
Now, all Riley can do is reminisce on the good ‘ole days.
We’ll always love him. We’ll never forget him. I can listen to ‘The Way We Were’ by Willie Hutch and I’ll come to tears just thinking about him. Or I can listen to “Always Together” by the Dells. See, only you and I know these songs. And I’ll come to tears thinking about him. I’m a cold-assed, cold-hearted Irishman. And I was raised in that kind of environment by a coach, by Dad, three brothers that were in the military that were athletes, eight coaches that were tough-minded guys. Believe me, that was a tough hit when Dwyane left.
Miami is off to a sluggish (2-6) start to the season.
