Dwyane Wade & Derrick Rose: Chicago Natives Who Could've Been Teammates...Twice
The Miami Heat and the Chicago Bulls are all set to battle in the 2011 NBA Eastern Conference Finals.
The much-anticipated series will feature two of the league's most talented and exciting guards in the Heat's Dwyane Wade and the Bulls' Derrick Rose. Both superstars were born and raised in the Chicago area and both have at least one Most Valuable Player Award on their resume.
D-Wade captured the 2006 NBA Finals MVP, averaging 34.7 points per game and leading Miami to a championship over Dirk Nowitzki and the Dallas Mavericks.
D-Rose hasn't won a Finals MVP, at least not yet, but he was recently named the regular season MVP after putting up 25 points and close to eight assists per game, surprisingly leading his Bulls to the league's best record.
Wade and Rose have done a lot for their respective franchises, but imagine if they were teammates, which is something that could have happened not once, but twice within the past three years.
In the 2008 NBA Draft, the Bulls owned the top pick while the Heat were awarded the No. 2 overall pick.
Leading up to the draft, Chicago was faced with a tough decision. What freshman potential superstar should they draft: Rose, the super-quick point guard from Memphis University or Kansas State forward Michael Beasley, who was drawing comparisons to All-Star Carmelo Anthony?
The Bulls, of course, wound up drafting Rose and Beasley landed in Miami to team up with Wade.
But the Bulls very well could have passed up Rose and took Beasley instead. If that would have been the case—something that would have eventually made Bulls fans sick to their stomachs—Wade and Rose could have formed an insane backcourt in South Beach.
It would have been a sight to see.
One Heat possession, you witness Wade attacking the basket on the way to a 30-point night. And on another possession, you get to see Rose breaking a defender's ankle before getting into the paint for a wild circus shot.
However, with Wade contributing his usual 25-plus points per game, Rose would have never been able to turn into a MVP caliber player, just a really good sidekick.
Would LeBron James have still signed with the Heat to form a "Big Three?"
Chris Bosh definitely wouldn't have come to Miami, not with Rose's contract on the books. Remember, the Heat had to trade Beasley to Minnesota for future second-round draft picks in order to make room for James and Bosh.
Okay, let's get back to Wade and Rose.
The two Chicago natives could have been teammates last summer as well. Chicago had garnered a ton of cash to throw at possibly the biggest free agent class in NBA history, with Wade being one of the most sought after.
Wade would flirt with the idea of returning to Chicago, the city where his children resides, but obviously in the end, he chose to re-sign with Miami and play alongside newcomers James and Bosh, creating the "Heatles."
If Wade had decided to sign with the Bulls, he and Rose could have instantly become the greatest Bulls backcourt since the days of "Stormin' Norman" Van Lier and Jerry Sloan way back in the day.
LeBron just might have chosen to "take his talents to the Windy City" instead of South Beach to make the Bulls even more dangerous.
But again, Rose wouldn't have had the chance to transform into a MVP as the No. 2 or No. 3 option on his team.
"What if?"
That's what many Bulls and Heat fans will be wondering throughout the Eastern Conference Finals, which will have fans at the edge of their seats watching entertaining plays by Dwyane Wade and Derrick Rose.
