Miami Heat legend Dwyane Wade was recently honored with his own statue, and he actually had his made right next to Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant’s statue.
Wade, who visited the statue maker during the process, revealed that he saw one flaw that he wanted to fix when it came to Bryant’s statue.
Behind-the-scenes of Dwyane Wade weighing in on his statue while it was being made, right next to Kobe’s statues…Wade told us on Open Run that as he tweaked his own, he had a liiiiiitle note about Kobe’s: “I guarded that move so many times – the leg was a little higher.” 😂 pic.twitter.com/2POgKfcDyS
— Rachel Nichols (@Rachel__Nichols) October 29, 2024
“It meant everything,” Wade said of having his statue made alongside Bryant’s. “Like I said, I went back four times, so I got a chance to see Kobe’s obviously, going from the wiring process to the clay process. They had the statue – and he has three of them – and so it was one of them that I looked at, and I was like, ‘Ah, it look a little off.’ And I wanted to go over, and I wanted to say, ‘I guarded that move so many times. The leg was a little higher.’ It’s just these little details.”
Wade and Bryant certainly had plenty of battles during their NBA careers, and they even won a gold medal together for Team USA in the 2008 Olympics.
Wade’s statue was unveiled on Sunday, but it was met with a lot of backlash for the appearance.
Dwyane Wade, immortalized. Congrats to the Miami Heat legend. pic.twitter.com/WyVWLMwLUE
— Heat Nation (@HeatNationCom) October 27, 2024
In fact, the Ringer’s Bill Simmons called it the “worst statue of all time.”
“The biggest loser of the day was Dwyane Wade, who had the worst statue of all time,” Simmons said. “What did you think it looked like? I actually thought it looked like somebody had emerged from a fire and lived.”
Despite the criticism, it appears that Wade is happy with how the statue came out, and he’s now immortalized in Heat franchise history.
In his storied NBA career, Wade averaged 22.0 points, 4.7 rebounds and 5.4 assists per game while shooting 48.0 percent from the field. He won a scoring title in the 2008-09 season and was an All-NBA selection eight times in his career.
Both he and Bryant are two of the greatest shooting guards of all time, although Bryant ended up winning more titles (five) with the Lakers than Wade did with the Heat (three) in his career.
It’s awesome to see that both the Lakers and Heat decided to honor Wade and Bryant in such a way for all of their accomplishments in the NBA.
