Does anyone have ESPN Insider that can summarize the article? I read the first part and it sounds like a good read.
OFF-COURT OR ON, DWYANE WADE IS THE MAN OF THE MOMENT-AND WILL BE FOR A GOOD LONG TIME BY DAN LE BATARD PHOTOGRAPHS BY KARIN CATT As Dwyane Wade trampolines into superstardom and becomes one of the NBA's 10 best players...?Top five,? Stephen Jackson corrects. Hold on. Can we pause the highlights reel and the attendant breathlessness in this discussion? Jackson missed nearly half of last season for punching out some fans, so let's bring in someone whose judgments aren't quite so impetuous. We may have to tolerate some generic coachspeak here, but if Mike Fratello had his choice between champion Manu Ginobili and Wade ? ?Wade,? Fratello says, without hesitation. Okay, um, how about a tastemaker, someone known for being stylish and trendy? Someone who made the basketball uniform fashionably fab so we'd no longer have to endure John Stockton in his too-tight Magnum, P.I. short-shorts? Hey, Jalen Rose-if all the world's basketball players are dumped into a really crowded green room to fill a draft for the one guy who will lead a team to a championship this year, surely a 27-year-old, seven-foot extraterrestrial like Dirk Nowitzki has to be the choice over a third-year 6?4" guard. ?I take Dwyane,? Rose says. Okay, how about if Wade and LeBron were vying for the spot? ?Dwyane,? Rose says. Wade or Kobe? ?Take Dwyane. He's fearless. You can't stop him from getting to the basket. He's probably the most exciting player in our league.? Calling Grant Hill, your honor. He's smart and measured and walked Wade's path before his ankle betrayed him. Hill was proclaimed Air's heir once. He even appeared on a cover of GQ that included the question Can Grant Hill Save Sports? because he, like Wade, has the grace to weave effortlessly between the admiration of the fedora-wearing pimps and the Armani-clad corporate types. Hill knows better than most that when you enter the best-since-Jordan conversation, the packaging is almost as important as the gift. Hyperventilation, after all, never starts without hype. So, Grant-Wade or league MVP Steve Nash? ?Wade,? Hill says. Wade or LeBron? ?Dwyane,? Hill says. Wade or Allen Iverson? ?Wade,? Hill says. Hill lets this progression marinate for a second. He scans the most recent playoff rosters in his mind. Ray Allen's team. Amare's team. Duncan's team. And, yeah, Shaq's team. Before you can ask any more comparative-shopping questions, Hill comes right out and says it: during last spring's playoffs, Wade was, flat-out, no question, the best basketball player in the world. ?Period,? Hill says. DWYANE WADE has entered rarified atmosphere, one that makes him, at once, both hot and cool. His name and game are on the same trajectory: rising. His 39-inch vertical leap is capable of carrying him all the way from the court right into the Oprah crowd. He is the right personality at the right time. David Stern says he wishes he could fly down to Miami, bottle what Wade has and pour the fragrance all over his league. Even the most disparate voices-from the scarred ghetto streets to the tree-lined cul de sacs, from the hip-hop community to Madison Avenue, from the indisputable truths of the hardwood to the subjective judgments of the front office-sing his praises in an echoing chorus. ?He's a genuinely nice young guy, completely adorable and, of course, a remarkably gifted and generous player,? says Vick Boughton, a senior editor at People, which recently named Wade one of the world's 50 Most Beautiful People. ?The female NBA fans here-and there are quite a few-insisted we go with him.? So Wade or fame? Who you got? ?I get that question so much,? Wade says. ?Everyone keeps asking when I'm going to change. Like it's expected.? Wade is polite, kind, unselfish, approachable, humble, human. Everyone from Shaq to the arena janitors will tell you so. The people who work for the Heat have observed him in big and small moments, and marvel at how nice he is to folks of all statures. His touch isn't something limited to the perimeter. One intoxicating year as a superstar's sidekick couldn't corrupt his core. Yes, it's early, and a different kind of temptation beckons now, with Wade about to step out of Shaq's substantive shadow and into all the bright lights. Kobe Then didn't morph into Kobe Now until he got a taste. Still, Wade comes off as fundamentally decent. And new-different from the scowling rebellion the sneaker companies sold in the most recent spin cycle. The formula works, as his agent, Henry Thomas, can attest: Decent + New = $. That's why Wade is so busy now putting the hot in Heat. Well, that and the fact that he's really, really good. ?WHERE DO I start?? Wade says, when asked about the single coolest thing that has come his way recently. The closetful of free clothes from new friend Diddy? Meeting Denzel? A TV appearance with Regis and Kelly? The cover of NBA Live 06? The stores that close upon his arrival so he can shop in private? He ticks these off with a shrug of his sculpted shoulders, and then actually laughs out loud for uttering this sentence: ?It was great to work with Jessica Alba at the MTV Music Awards.? Wade has defeated odds, defeated doubt, defeated his draft class, defeated poverty, defeated gravity and, so far, defeated the tripleteam of vanity, ego and arrogance. But now comes the hard part, which is seeing clearly with all those flashbulbs constantly going off in his eyes. It is one thing to be a star in your sport, like gentleman Tim Duncan; it is another thing entirely to become a star, period. And as his boss, Pat Riley, knows, it isn't easy to stay grounded when everything else in your life feels like it's floating. Wade's agent says he was swamped with an avalanche of requests and offers for his client during the playoffs. At the time, Wade's jersey was the No.1 seller at the NBA Store in Manhattan and on its website. People want to dress and look like D-Wade, and companies will pay big bank to be attached to D-Wade. Diddy has signed him to model for Sean John in Paris and beyond, promising to make Wade ?the first NBA supermodel.? Wade is a pretty sweet crossover. Hip-hop, yes-but also hip, with hops. And to think it was only two years ago that Wade was wearing a Shaq jersey around the Marquette campus and taking out a loan so he could afford diapers. It wasn't even that long ago that Wade said he ?couldn't get nobody to look at me.? Last off-season, Thomas tried to sell his client to corporate America by mailing unsolicited CDs to companies that showed Wade on and off the court, interacting with children and dealing with the media. He got virtually no response. And now? ?Things are moving so fast,? Wade says. He is so busy that he forgets to tell his wife, Siohvaughn, that he's, um, yeah, one of the most beautiful people in the world. Even if he does remember to tell her about how Ray Lewis or Vivica A. Fox wanted to meet him, there's a real chance she won't hear it because she's too busy reading the Newsweek profile of her husband under a ?Kobe Who?? headline. Wade has the outsize wingspan and hands of someone 6?9". So there's no telling, as he makes the big leap across both his sport and the culture, just how much will end up within his grasp. He enjoys the attention in a quiet way (you don't walk down a Paris runway dressed up in Diddy's clothes if you don't), but he remains humbled and awed by the developments. ?Now people in other countries know who I am,? he says. He remains, at the core, the baby-face kid who admits he is still a bit frugal. He spent his first NBA payday staring at the check. This is all under my name? I can do what I want with it? And we get another in two weeks? All his head coacheshigh school, college and pro-say he is about as incorruptible as a mortal can be. His biggest crime? He is too unselfish, refusing to take over games when he should because he is too focused on trying to keep his teammates involved. ?My job is to give my teammates confidence,? he says. ?I already have it.? As Wade fan Dontrelle Willis likes to say, don't let the smooth taste fool you. There is an assassin buried beneath that polite smile, a competitive cruelty you'll find just about anywhere you find greatness. ?I'm always mad when I'm playing basketball,? Wade says. By his own admission, Wade entered the league meek and no good at saying no, but now he says he is more confident, willing to upbraid veterans, willing to lead and win and to do something big. Last season, Wade told a trash-talking Kobe to shut up. Did the same to courtside actors after making a buzzer-beating game-winner at Madison Square Garden. In neither instance did he start the conversation. But he did finish them both. He is dealing from strength. Scott Skiles calls Wade the best guard in the league. Chauncey Billups says no one goes to the basket better. Tayshaun Prince says Wade is a tougher cover than Kobe. His own coach, Stan Van Gundy, marvels at Wade's efficiency. ?Shoot a little, score a lot,? Van Gundy calls it. Van Gundy, like most people who know Wade, isn?t worried about ego polluting the purity of his star. ?We all might be able to fake it for a while, but we are who we are,? he says. ?We?ve been around Dwyane two full years now, and it would be hard to fake it for that long. He?s the real deal.? AS WITH all the best stories, nobody saw this coming. Not Wade?s high school coach, who was just hoping his skinny guard might get a Division I shot. Not his college coach, who can?t believe Wade?s unfathomable growth over the past five years. Nobody who scouted, measured, observed, drafted or paid Wade admits to having any idea he was going to be all this. In fact, if the last-place Heat had lost a meaningless regular-season game against Toronto three seasons ago, putting them fourth on the draft board instead of fifth, Riley hints he?d have taken Chris Bosh instead. Of course, we?re still a long way from Jordan, who once averaged 37 points a game and did his winning with Will Perdue and Bill Wennington, not Shaq. But best since MJ? Maybe. For his part, Wade avoids all Jordan comparisons as if they carried something contagious. He respects the game and his idol too much to place himself in that company, often cutting off Jordan comparisons before they get started. The most he?ll do is admit to having what he calls ?Jordanlike symptoms.? One Jordan symptom: Wade quietly gutted it out through the playoffs with the help of two cortisone shots-one needle under his 12th rib and another in his buttocks. He endured so much pain after being injured in Game 5 against the Pistons that it hurt to breathe at night even ?I?ve been trying to sell myself, my clothes, my team, my shoes,? Wade says. ?If I?m going to be liked or disliked, I want people to get a chance to see me, talk to me, observe me. It?s my job to get the people who already like me to like me more and the people who dislike me to dislike me less.? We are witnessing the making of a corporation. ?What?s the biggest opportunity in front of me now?? Wade asks. ?I?m not afraid. I?m not with the numbing. It took him an hour to get out of bed the next morning. He couldn?t shoot a basketball for seven weeks after the season. So his Converse campaign, over which he had creative control, had him all over the country this off-season shilling for a brand that, like him, was broke a few years ago. Wade just inked a new longterm extension with the shoemaker. Planning on doing a lot of falling down. I?m 23 years old. Gotta strike while this is hot. I never think I?m as good as other people think I am, but I do think I?m a winner. I want championships, not scoring titles or MVPs. And I?m not going to change. I won?t ever walk around like this is Wade County.? He says this while sitting at the center of a fantasyland that may as well be called Wade?s World. Another one of his TV commercials is being filmed at the moment in the University of Miami?s basketball arena. A woman saunters by with a tray of cookies and Cuban coffee. Everyone who is milling about-light people, computer people, editing people, advertising people, sound people-is working very hard to make sure Wade looks just so. There is always an attendant nearby in case he needs something, wants something or thinks of maybe needing or wanting something. A DJ has been brought in to spin TI, 50 Cent and Jay-Z, Wade?s favorites. As a woman with an eyedropper comes by to apply fake sweat to Wade?s glistening frame, he says, ?This is hard work.? He doesn?t even try to stifle the smile. But, c?mon, there has to be a downside to all this attention. ?Not anything bad about being me right now,? he says, as his smile grows wider. The DJ turns up TI. Bring 'em out, Still ballin', money stack taller than Shaq now, It's clear to see that I'm ahead of my time, I got a packed house yellin. Bring 'em out, bring 'em out. All my hot girls yellin. Bring 'em out, bring 'em out. All the dope boyz yellin. Bring 'em out, bring 'em out. From the back they yellin. The director calls for Wade to stand amid the extras who are there only to frame him. ?I never expected this,? Wade says, as he gets up and steps into his new world. ?I did dream it, though. In the backyard. In bed. ?Now it?s coming, and I?m ready.?
Its interesting that Riley would have probably taken Bosh over Wade if he had the chance. I think no one really knew that Wade would develop the way he did. I hope Wade can maintain himself, and handle all the glory. Maintain his humbleness, and keep thinking about the team first.
