<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">The kid, a basketball star from Chicago, had a question for his coach. Sunday workouts at Richards High were on the informal side, so Demetris McDaniel wanted to know if his younger stepbrother could tag along. "Do I look like I'm running a day-care center?" Jack Fitzgerald barked. McDaniel brought this skin and bones eighth-grader anyway, all 5-foot-8 of him. Fitzgerald didn't need to see more than an hour to grasp the obvious. Finding Dwyane Wade dribbling a ball in that gym was like finding Lana Turner sipping her soda at the Top Hat Cafe. And so here we are, 10 years later, with a basketball story good enough for the movies. Young man from a turbulent neighborhood finds tranquility in a game that didn't rush to embrace him. In some recruiting rankings, Wade wasn't named among the top 100 high school seniors in the country. This morning, in his second season, Wade wakes up as the very best player in the NBA. "I knew we were getting a talent when we drafted him," said Pat Riley, president of the Miami Heat. "I didn't know we were getting this." This is the anti-Kobe, the selfless sidekick who remains as humble as his roots. This is the gift Shaquille O'Neal and David Stern have been hoping for, a high-flying action hero who keeps himself grounded for the sake of his teammates and his league. This is the guard who can blow past the Kobe Bryants, the T-Macs, the Vince Carters, the Grant Hills, and the rest of the perimeter powers who entered the NBA as possible heirs to the throne. Yes, Dwyane Wade is the one who might inspire Michael Jordan to look at him the way Jack Nicklaus looks at Tiger Woods.</div> Source
