Dwyane Wade Should Take Back Seat to Chris Bosh for Miami Heat
Dwyane Wade used to lead the Miami Heat by example, helping the franchise fill the win column by leaving overstuffed stat lines next to his name.
During the past four seasons, though, he led by sacrifice, giving former teammate LeBron James control of everything from the biggest box scores to the key to the city. While James has bolted back to Ohio, the challenge for Wade hasn't changed.
Miami still needs him to be in a giving mood; only versatile big man Chris Bosh will now be the one grabbing the wheel.
Bosh may not actually be a better player than Wade, but that has never been the motivation for the latter to give up control of the spotlight. During their first full season together, Wade and James sat on a nearly even plane. Both averaged more than 25 points (25.5 and 26.7, respectively) and six rebounds (6.4 and 7.5), and both hit at least half of their field-goal attempts (50.0 and 51.0).
Wade and James dominated together, and the Heat followed their lead to 58 wins and an NBA Finals appearance. As good as it was, Wade knew it could be better.
Despite clearly possessing superstar credentials of his own, he willingly signed off on a sidekick role that would ultimately better structure the franchise.
"Are we going to be good if me and him are both scoring 27 a night?" Wade said in 2012, per ESPN.com's Israel Gutierrez. "Yeah, we're gonna be good, but it would be too much, 'OK, it's your turn, now it's your turn.' I wanted to give him the opportunity where he didn't have to think about that."
With James at the controls and Wade filling in where needed, Miami claimed consecutive NBA championships in 2012 and 2013.
That ceiling no longer exists in South Beach. Optimistic projections pit the Heat as one of several teams battling for the Eastern Conference's No. 3 seed behind James' Cleveland Cavaliers and the Derrick Rose-led Chicago Bulls.
Still, the blueprint to reach those expectations—or perhaps even surpass them—is the same as it was with a world title on the line: Wade needs to reprise his Robin role and let Bosh take over as Miami's new Batman.
Bosh is younger than Wade (30 to 32), more durable (20 games missed the past three seasons to 58) and more expensive ($20.6 million to $15 million). All signs point to Bosh leading this team between the lines, including coach Erik Spoelstra's plan to take full advantage of his center's deep bag of offensive tricks.
"What C.B. understands is he has a lot of responsibilities," Spoelstra told reporters, via the South Florida Sun Sentinel's Ira Winderman, earlier this month. "And if we're just talking offensive, he has a lot to do for us, in terms of facilitating, in terms of scoring, in terms of spacing the floor, and doing that from different areas on the court."
It's been a while since Bosh held center stage at this level.
He was the Toronto Raptors' focal point the first seven seasons of his career. During his final five years north of the border, he put up 22.8 points on 50.0 percent shooting and 9.9 rebounds a night. Back then, he would bully his defender on the low block, shred nets from the mid-range or explode to the basket off face-up looks from the elbow.
Heat fans rarely saw that part of Bosh's arsenal.
With the slashing and post games of James and Wade, Miami didn't need—or even want—Bosh to be a force around the basket. Instead, the Heat carved him a finesse role that played up his shooting touch on the perimeter.
Bosh attempted 168 threes during his entire tenure with Toronto. He launched 218 last season alone and connected on 74 of them (33.9 percent).
With James out, the Heat can't afford to leave Bosh in a specialist's role. They need to get him back on the low block and allow him to show he can still carry the burden as a No. 1 option.
But it's not as simple as rediscovering his old Raptors form. What the Heat really need is an amalgamation of the interior force from back then with today's perimeter threat, a superb scorer capable of putting up points from anywhere on the floor.
Blending those two styles together won't be easy, but Bosh told Bleacher Report's Jared Zwerling that he's ready to embrace the challenge:
"I really want to do it for the city of Miami—to show my evolution and my growth, and display a different level of my talent. It's not easy; I went from [about] 20 [points] and 10 [rebounds] in Toronto to 16 and 7 last season.
I'm a much better player than I was in Toronto, and I'll be able to give Miami a lot more. I'm excited to really test out what I've done over these years, as far as leadership is concerned, as far as what's on the court is concerned, and really put it out there.
"
As tough as the road ahead might be for Bosh, Wade's could be far more difficult.
After having missed an average of 19 games the past three seasons, he can't possibly know how his body will cooperate going forward. The Heat don't have the depth to put him on a carefully managed maintenance plan like they did last season, so he'll have to squeeze whatever he can out of his creaky knees.
"My focus is that every day, whether I'm feeling amazing or not, I want to come up here and practice and be available for my teammates," he told Bleacher Report's Ethan Skolnick. "Give them what I'm able to give them that day, and so forth. That's the mindset I have."
Miami might appreciate his effort, but it obviously needs something a tad more reliable to play the role of franchise face.
It's imperative that Wade realizes this, as well. The Heat will gladly take what he can give, but they really just need to him to find his niche spot on the team's new pecking order. It's going to be an adjustment and probably not the most comfortable one, but to his credit, he is trying to find his place.
"I'm still finding my way with this team and this offense," he said, per Winderman (via ProBasketballTalk's Kurt Helin). "So I'm still trying to see where I fit in. I know I can get a shot any time I want, but it's about the quality of it more so than anything."
Wade has been selective in the preseason (9.8 field-goal attempts in 23.6 minutes) but not all that efficient (40.8 percent shooting from the field). While exhibition stats aren't the easiest to trust, these may well reflect the struggles Wade will have in reinventing himself for the good of this franchise again.
"It took Dwyane Wade about a season and a half to really figure out how to play next to LeBron James," Helin wrote. "Now it's taking some time to adjust to LeBron not being around."
It's not just about losing James, it's also the additions of guys like Luol Deng, Danny Granger, Josh McRoberts, Shabazz Napier and James Ennis. There are plenty of moving parts, and Wade must figure out how to fit a puzzle of which he used to be the centerpiece.
That job belongs to Bosh now, and he seems more than capable of handling it. As long as Wade respects that fact and properly assesses himself, Miami should still enter this campaign as it has the last several—strengthened by one of the better superstar sidekicks in the business.
Unless otherwise noted, statistics used courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com and NBA.com.
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