The Big 3
Woj asked Wade what it was like having that microscope on himself and his teammates after they formed the Big 3 with the arrivals of LeBron James and Chris Bosh in 2010. Had he ever felt that heavily scrutinized before?
“No. No. Not even close. Somebody asked me about the first time we went to Cleveland. I said, ‘It was a movie.’ There will never be nothing like that in basketball ever again. Not that. That was insane. For the first time in my life I seen hatred from a look. I really felt that people hated me, all of us. Just the smell in the arena, the atmosphere. It just breathed hate.” – Dwyane Wade
Wade also insisted that the forming of the Big 3 was not preordained. In fact, he told Heat owner Micky Arison that they had practically no chance to land LeBron.
“Everyone thought we [the Big 3] had this master plan to play together….[The Heat] stayed pat, they didn’t make any moves [at the 2010 deadline.] Micky asked me, ‘What do you think the chances are of getting LeBron?’ I said, ‘0.001%.’ I didn’t think it was even possible, and that was one of my best friends. So it definitely wasn’t the way everybody said.” – Dwyane Wade
As for the other big market teams that courted Wade and his pals in that crazy free agency summer of 2010? Dwyane said the New York Knicks weren’t ready for such a big move.
“I think all of us met with them. They just wasn’t prepared. They wasn’t ready to take on what we felt we wanted to do. The city was ready. The market was there. It’s New York. But from the organization standpoint, we didn’t feel like they could handle it…This is the prime of our career. This is the meat of it. This decision is going to make or break your career, and we really had to make a decision that made sense. And Miami, the structure was there for us. It worked out. But when you talk about markets and cities, Chicago and New York is the biggest we were reaching out to. But it was never something that I was serious about when it came down to it.” – Dwyane Wade
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