Dwyane Wade’s Magnum Opus

By the time he said Jokers are wild if you wanna be tame/I treat you like a child then you’re gonna be named I already knew my ears were thanking me. Lyrics flowed like Niagara, perfectly and precisely. The perfect voice. The perfect MC. Words were his butter, and the track was his toast. Extra crispy. The appeal was wrapped up somewhere between the aura, the talent and the mythology. Revisiting the initial confirmation of that first listen is nearly impossible. I knew it instantly. And with Dwyane Wade, it took maybe three weeks of basketball before I realized that his 2008-09 season had a chance to be the best thing we’ve seen from a swingman since Jordan.

D-Wade’s ridiculous 2008-09 season never gets its due. We stuffed it into the back of the case holder, and whenever we go looking for it, we stop first on one of LeBron‘s MVP years or Kobe‘s shoulda-been MVP years. Michael Jordan casts a long shadow, deep and imposing, but Wade went Halloween on us for 89 games that year. He was our Jordan, except dressed up in a different uniform with worse sneakers.

How good was that season? Here are some names who had better years than Wade: Tyson Wheeler, Darrell Armstrong, Orien Greene and Mike Penberthy. The only problem: those guys all played barely two weeks of NBA ball. Judging off PER, Wade’s 2008-09 is the greatest season in NBA history (30.4) by someone 6-4 or shorter who played a full year (actually, Wade has five of the best seven full seasons of PER in NBA history for someone 6-4 or smaller, but that’s a story for another day). Besides one year from Allen Iverson, Miami slumped upon Wade’s shoulders throughout that season more than any player ever at 6-4 or smaller.

[Related: Dwyane Wade – The New Mike]

The season before had been Wade’s Nastradamus. He was washed up, or at least getting there. His knees were turning to stone; His teammates didn’t care enough. Miami finished with the worst record in the league and Wade had his second straight year missing a third of the season.

But he let the world know he was back during the Olympics, then took it to another level once the year started. Against Toronto in November, he had 40, 11 assists and five blocks. The team still lost. In February, he dropped 50 on 57 percent shooting. The team still lost. On March 9, he beat Chicago with 48 points, six boards, 12 dimes, four steals and three blocks. He missed six shots the whole game. It still took overtime to win, and Wade had to do it with a mind-boggling running three-pointer at the buzzer. On the last night of the regular season, he beat New York with 55 points on 63 percent shooting. I could go on.

Unlike the following season where Wade again lost in the first round but eviscerated Boston so thoroughly that I thought I was watching Donnie Brasco, his 2009 playoff run was somewhat disappointing. Losing to Atlanta in a somewhat forgettable seven-game frolic, Wade never had that one defining moment. His fellow playoff starters: a too young James Jones, Mario Chalmers and Udonis Haslem, and a too oldJermaine O’Neal. Can you blame him? If those guys played Kobe’s teammates from 2006, they might get run out of the gym.

Wade always lacked a certain something. That has to be it. There’s no other way to describe the way he gets overlooked. Only once was he called the best in the world… and he became an definitively better player just a few years later. On the 2008 Olympic team, it was famously said, “There are only two killers on this team: Kobe Bryant and D-Wade.” But we don’t look at him as a prodigy. No one hears gladiator-like gushes about his work ethic. He’s here, but not entirely. We’re always pushing someone else.

[Related: Dwyane Wade Breaks Ray Allen’s Ankles]

Did Wade deserve the MVP that season? He could’ve been. It’s hard to argue with LeBron as the choice, who was so dominant he earned 109 first-place votes. Wade had seven. James was so good that year – Rakim on a ’87 cut – that after he averaged 35.3 points, 9.1 rebounds and 7.3 assists in the playoffs, all we did was complain that he gave up and failed.

I’ll still argue Wade’s year doesn’t get the respect it needs. His 2006 Finals performance is his real magnum opus, but as individual seasons go, 2008-09 will be hard to top. Being the first player to ever have 2,000 points, 500 assists, 100 steals, and 100 blocks in a season is money.

Where would you rank this individual season all time amongst guards?

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