Dwyane Wade Gets No Respect

ESPN. George Karl. David Robinson. What do these three all have in common? They all have mentioned the best players in the league and all have seemed to purposely leave out scoring leader and All-Star Dwyane Wade of the 27-23 Miami Heat.

ESPN recently had an online poll asking its viewers who was the midseason MVP; the list consisted of LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Chris Paul, and Dwight Howard. While all are deserving candidates for the award, as they all have greatly impacted their team, Wade deserves recognition for what he has done to his former bottom-feeder Miami Heat team.

George Karl recently spoke about the MVP race as well, claiming that LeBron, Kobe, CP3, and Dwight were above and beyond everyone else in the league. Once again, he too failed to mention Dwyane Wade, who earlier in the season lit Karl's team up for 31 points in a Nuggets win. The Nuggets and Heat face each other this Tuesday and, for the Nuggets sake, the quote won't reach Wade before the game.

While sitting courtside at a Heat game, David Robinson was interviewed by a Heat correspondent and spoke about the United States basketball team that recently won a gold medal.

Failing to mention Wade again, Robinson stated Kobe and LeBron were the true leaders and won the gold for the team. Robinson said this despite the fact that Wade led the team in scoring, including a 27-point outing in the gold medal game and a number of highlight reel plays.

While the Heat are not superior to teams like the Cavaliers, Lakers, Magic, and Hornets, the fact is that people can't forget about what the Heat were last year; a 15-67 team of D-League players where Wade played only 51 injury-plagued games.

Clearly Wade's impact can be seen on this year's team; the Heat already have 12 more wins than last year halfway through the season. A healthy Dwyane Wade is a dangerous player to go against.

All of the other so-called "best players" of the league have other great players to look to when on the court. Kobe Bryant has Pau Gasol, LeBron James has Mo Williams and Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Dwight Howard has Hedo Turkoglu, Rashard Lewis, and Jameer Nelson.

Dwyane Wade plays with a number of rookies and a small starting forward who doesn't fit into the Heat's style of play. The closest player to Wade's ability is Michael Beasley, who comes off the bench and averages 24 minutes a game.

Not only is the star shooting guard first in points with 28.3, he is also ninth in assists and third in steals. Those stats don't look too bad on the MVP resume. The fact that he averages 1.4 blocks a game is also tops among guards. This career season of Wade's seems to go unnoticed in the MVP race and is sometimes not even ranked along with the other top players of the league.

The season is only halfway through, and career numbers for Wade seem to not be enough to make an impact in the MVP race or earn him any recognition. Maybe Emeka Okafor can tell you why Wade should be in the running.