Miami Heat announces Dwyane Wade statue outside Kaseya Center. ‘I didn’t dream of this’

A banner with his old jersey number hanging from the rafters at the Kaseya Center isn’t enough for Dwyane Wade: The Miami Heat is building him a statue.

Dwyane Wade already has his jersey retired, a spot in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, three championships and just about every record of note for the Heat, so there wasn’t much more for Miami to give him to memorialize his legendary career but a statue on Biscayne Boulevard. The bronze statue will stand 8 feet -- it had to be bigger than Shaquille O’Neal, Pat Riley quipped -- and set Wade apart from every other great the franchise has ever had, as the only player to have a statue outside the arena.

“I didn’t dream of this,” Wade said, choking up after Riley told him the news. “I’m very grateful.”

The Heat brought Wade back to Miami on Sunday to honor him for his induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame last year and surprised him with the news at halftime of Miami’s 104-87 rout of the Charlotte Hornets. Radio announcer Jason Jackson conducted an interview with Wade at halftime, reflecting on the former guard’s career and legacy in Florida, and Riley came out for the end of the interview, toting a bobblehead of Wade.

Wade joked that the bobblehead looked nothing like him. Riley joked about wanting to hang something like a bobblehead from the banner, which now carries a strip at the bottom to note Wade’s induction into the Hall of Fame. The president then brought up another idea: How did a statue sound?

Wade fought back tears after hearing the news. The Heat (23-16) will unveil the statue sometime during the 2024-25 NBA season, before the end of 2024, although the team has not yet set a specific date.

“Goosebumps. I was just like, Whoa. I definitely wasn’t expecting that,” coach Erik Spoelstra said. “He shocked Dwyane. I loved seeing Dwyane have that really sincere, really genuine reaction to it, where he was speechless.”

Said star center Bam Adebayo: “It just shows the effect he’s had not only on the organization, but the community as a whole. They call it ‘Wade County’ for a reason and he’ll be stamped in this city forever, and he’ll be one of those people we always talk about.”

The news made Wade think back to his childhood in Chicago, where he worshiped Michael Jordan and always cherished his opportunities to see the statue of the legend outside the United Center.

Thirty years after the Chicago Bulls unveiled their statue of the greatest player in their franchise history and the greatest shooting guard of all time, Wade -- the greatest player in Miami history and the third greatest shooting guard of all time -- will get his own outside the arena where he played the vast majority of his career.

“It’s not something I dreamed of, but it’s something I definitely grew up knowing about,” Wade said “Jordan had a statue in Chicago. That was the first statue I’ve ever seen, so to be able to be at this point in my life where I know that the same feeling I had when Jordan had his statue is the same feeling that young kids will have coming, getting an opportunity to visit mine, families will have, being able to create memories and moments.”

Wade played more than 14 of his 16 seasons for the Heat and holds franchise records for games played, points scored, assists and more than a dozen other statistical categories. Miami took him with the No. 4 pick in the 2003 NBA draft and Wade led the Heat to its first championship just three years later, then two more in the 2010s after LeBron James came to Miami to team up with him.

When Wade first joined the NBA, the Heat didn’t have a single retired jersey. Now, Miami has five -- a sixth, Udonis Haslem’s, will go up in the rafters Friday -- and Wade, for now, is the only player drafted by Miami to have his jersey number retired.

Ask just about anyone and they’ll say Wade is one of the 30 or 40 best players in the history of the league. Ask anyone in South Florida, though, and they’ll talk about Wade like he’s even better.

“I’m not the greatest player to ever play the game of basketball, but you can’t tell me that or nobody in Miami that when I come here,” Wade said. “I feel like the greatest player to ever play the game of basketball when I step into this arena, when I step into this city or state.”