Dwyane Wade Facing Unique Opportunity with Miami Heat in 2014-15
The 2014-15 NBA season set to tip off in six weeks, and Dwyane Wade is a name that’s on the tip of exactly zero tongues.
With LeBron James home with the Cleveland Cavaliers and Chris Bosh set to assume the mantle of offensive threat numero uno for the Miami Heat, something exceedingly improbable has transpired: The surefire Hall of Famer has become an afterthought.
This marks a stark shift from seasons past. For the last several years, as Wade’s centrality to the Heat offense has diminished, his narrative import has swelled. In fact, it’s swelled for that very reason.
The primary question the Heat faced during the tail stretch of their title run was whether Wade had the physical wherewithal to continue as a No. 2 option on a contender. Both sides of the debate marshaled powerful evidence.
The case against Wade was strong: his numbers dipped across the board.
In 2013-14, the guard was below his career average in rebounds, points, assists, steals and blocks. During the last three seasons, according to Basketball-Reference, his win shares per 48 minutes slipped from .227 to .192 down to .149. The final figure is still 49 percent above league average, but that’s a precipitous drop nonetheless.
More disconcertingly, Wade didn’t look the same. He lacked the spark, the explosion, the kinesthetic panache that characterized his game across the first portion of his distinguished career. The “Holy smokes, he did what?” moments were scarce.
And even more troubling—in 2013-14, at least—this slippage persisted despite a Miami strategy explicitly designed to mitigate it. Wade sat 24 times last season. And, at 32.9 a night, he played a career low in minutes.
The salient component of Miami’s three-peat plan this past year was to rest Wade as often as possible during the regular season so he would be maximally prepared to kick rear and record names in the playoffs.
This plan wasn’t a rousing success.
Wade, again, posted the third-lowest win shares per 48 minutes of his life, per Basketball-Reference, and got flayed so fully by the San Antonio Spurs in the NBA Finals that Deadspin’s Sean Newell wrote:
"Wade is 32 years old with a 75-year-old's knees, but at times he looks like he also got the 75-year-old's quaint senility, just out on the court watchin' shit happen. When he's actually involved and aware of his surroundings, Boris Diaw blows past him. All of which is exacerbated and exploited by the Spurs, who have been putting on a ball-movement clinic this whole postseason.
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So there was that. But, alongside these failures, there stood great successes. Wade, despite struggling relative to his sky-high standards, set a career-best in true shooting percentage, per Basketball-Reference. And he finished second among shooting guards in player efficiency rating, according ESPN, first in the Eastern Conference.
And even with a win shares per 48 minutes figure that was, again, near his career nadir, he was nearly 50 percent more productive than a league-average player.
Wade became a human Rorschach test. Even with LeBron in town, he was the most-dissected, the most-polarizing member of the mighty Heat. James was greater; Bosh was arguably more central to Miami’s attack—but Wade was the most interesting.
But, in the course of an offseason, this dynamic has been flipped on its ear. Of the three principals in Miami’s mini-dynasty, he’s the one who’s attracted the least attention over the summer.
There’s a tasty irony in this. Though Wade hasn’t drawn the notice of the media to the extent he once did, he’ll be considerably more front-of-mind for opposing defenses now that James has finished his four-year degree at Miami and returned home to good ol’ Ohio. And here’s the strange thing: It’s a scrutiny he figures to fare well against.
The conventional wisdom holds that Wade’s game, as he declined athletically, became contingent on James. Defenders paid more attention to LeBron, which in turn led to more makeable shots for Wade, which in turn allowed the guard to post such gaudy true shooting percentages over the past four seasons.
This notion isn’t really borne out in the numbers though. According to NBAwowy.com, Wade recorded a true shooting percentage of 57.1 during the 2013-14 regular and postseason with LeBron on the bench and 58.6 with James in the game. Since January of 2012, Wade is at 56.8 with James and 55.8 absent the star.
That’s impressive in its own right. But it gets even more so when we consider his usage. It’s broadly accepted among basketball-stat junkies that shooting efficiency dips as usage increases. That’s not what happened with Wade.
In the regular and postseason since January of 2012, Wade has posted a usage rate of 36.5 percent without LeBron, per NBAwowy.com, and 25.5 percent with him. According to Hoops Habit, if extended over the course of a regular season, this non-LeBron usage rate would have been the fourth-highest in NBA history.
Despite his age and the lack of attention, the guard could be primed for a comeback campaign. At least relative to expectations. Because, as peculiar as it is to say, almost any meaningful contribution from Wade will come as a surprise to some.
“I am ecstatic to have him back in the fold and I am confident that Dwyane, as always, will be leading this team as we look to contend for NBA championships,” Pat Riley said via a press release after the Heat came to terms with the veteran (h/t ESPN).
Wade is probably a long shot to carry the Heat to contention this coming season, but, even with his profile at a low point, he could certainly resemble the player who once did.
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