Dwyane Wade On “7PM In Brooklyn”

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Dwyane Wade joins Melo and Mero to talk about creating the Heat Big-3, acknowledgement from Magic Johnson, and NBA 75 experience on “7PM In Brooklyn”.

We share this week’s episode of 7PM in Brooklyn, a Wave Sports + Entertainment Original, hosted by NBA legend, Carmelo Anthony, and multi-talented comedian and host, The Kid Mero.

This week, the guys are joined by 3x Championship Winner Dwyane Wade, to discuss his journey to NBA greatness, going against his family wishes to create the Big-3 with LeBron, getting the nod from Magic Johnson, and Michael Jordan trash-talking at the NBA 75 All Star Weekend.

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS

  • [5:48] D-WADE ON SHAQ USING REVERSE PSYCHOLOGY ON HIM DURING THE 2006 FINALS

D-WADE:I remember the moment. He tried to use a little reverse psychology on me. I was averaging like 28 at the time. I was hooping. This was ‘06 in the finals against Dallas. We were down two and Shaq is not playing up to Shaq’s standards. He wasn’t dominating at the time…When he first came, we sat down and talked about me getting to that Kobe and that Penny [Hardaway] level…We know what Penny was when he first came in before the injury. I mean we’d never seen nothing like it…So he wanted me to get to that level and he knew I had the potential, so he put a little fire under me. You know what I mean? He kind of was like, yo, this is your time, I got three [championships], what you going do type of energy but it released me. Once he did that, he was pretty much saying, if you don’t do it, we ain’t winning.

MELO:So to that point and this is where I was going at when I said it’s a slight comparison in my eyes. After your 2006 championship, you was a different person, a different player, a different person. Your swag was different, your conversation was different and the way that you approached the game was different and the way that you approached players was different. I’m sitting here with JT [Jayson Tatum] and I’m telling him the same thing. I said, yo, this reminds me of D Wade. Prior to that championship, D Wade trying to figure it out, who I’m going to be, my personality, how I’m going to fit in, what’s my purpose over here. When you win you realize, oh, I’m here, I went and got this. I’m trying to tell JT…and I said that to him because that’s how you came back in 2007. I mean injuries, bar, whatever but you came back like that even when you came back in 2008 for the Olympics.

  • [12:05] D-WADE CREDITS MELO FOR UNDERSTANDING HIS GAME BETTER AND PLAYING STYLE

D-WADE:Melo broke down my game better than anybody has ever broken down my game right here on 7PM [in Brooklyn podcast]. Me and me and my guys watched it and I had to run it back. I was like, no one is ever really, they don’t understand my game.You don’t know what I did. I did so many different things and I played so many different roles and so that’s one of the reasons why I don’t get, I’m not the greatest shooter of all time, I’m not great at this, but I was great at so many different things and Melo talked about it. Then I learned how to be great at being a role player. Then I learned how to be and so I learned how to be great at all these things and no one knows how to really break down my game. So they look over it and they just go to one or two things but I did so many things in the game of basketball. Yeah, I thought I was coming for MJ, I’m going to be the greatest…I thought I was going to be before injuries, I’m like MJ, I’m coming for you. I mean that’s my mentality. Yea I’m like I’m going to be the greatest because I figured it out very early in the league.

  • [31:41] D-WADE ON TEAM USA AND HIS THOUGHTS ON COACH K

I always say Coach K was the perfect coach for us. He had the right temperament, he had the right toughness, he had the right pressure on the team and ultimately the coach gotta check his ego as well. It is a lot of egos that gotta be checked at the door, but also as Coach K told us but I need you to bring it too because that’s what make you who you are. So the coaches, they’re going to have to check their egos. It’s going to be moments where it’s going to get testy. It’s going to be moments where fingers want to point, right and so your leader at that point is going to be very important. Especially when you got a group of guys on the court that are used to being him and they can’t be him and they frustrated, you are the one that got to figure all this out and so it’s going to be very important what Steve Kerr and Erik Spoelstra and Tyronn Lue and their coaching staff, how they handle that team.

  • [42:32] D-WADE SAYS MICHAEL JORDAN AND MAGIC JOHNSON STARTED TALKING SHIT RIGHT AWAY AT NBA 75

D-WADE:When MJ came in and it went silent. Everybody was like oh.

MELO:He sizing everybody up. He walk up past you…’bust your ass’.

D-WADE:You saw the clip with him and Magic [Johnson] that went viral, right? That was right away and that’s the moment where I was just sitting there and I’m like, I’m listening to [Michael] Jordan and Magic [Johnson] talk shit. Like are they serious?

  • [45:17] D-WADE REVEALS THE BEST MOMENT AT THE NBA 75 EXPERIENCE AT THE 2022 NBA ALL STAR WEEKEND WAS BEING ACKNOWLEDGED BY MAGIC JOHNSON

D-WADE:I do say my entry, it is kind of like the right, like you said, it’s some people that when you walk in a room, they pay you the respect, they give you the nod. You know what I mean and so for me, when I walked in, it was Magic [Johnson]. You know what I’m saying?

MELO:Magic gave you the nod. Magic gave you that before.

D-WADE:He gave me that before, but as soon as I walked in the room, because he gave me that and you got to be humble. He was the first person I see when I walked in the room and he just looked at me like, D Wade, you’re here. For me it was kind of like he welcomed me into the basketball heaven like come on in son…So that right there for me was probably the most fire moment when I walked in. I saw big bro welcome me to the heavens.

  • [50:33] D-WADE DISCUSSES GOING AGAINST HIS TEAM AND FAMILY IN ORDER TO CREATE THE BIG-3 WITH LEBRON JAMES

My personality, first of all, just how I am in life, it helps, know what I mean? You got to know who you are and so I knew that my personality, even though I have an alpha personality, also understand how to look at perspective and look on the other side and move to the side. I got that ability to be able to sometimes take a break and look around, and see some people who are so great, they just looking this way and I got the ability to be able to stop and make a different decision. So yeah. Was it tough as hell? Yeah, it was tough but also too, I think I was the perfect person to play that role. There ain’t a lot of people that could play that role, that can give, I mean, LeBron [James] is an amazing player, but you got to work around him, to work with him and so as you’ve seen, the first years we were together, we did everything together. We did every interview together, every press conference, every time you seen him, you seen me because we had to be so lockstep because we knew, I knew everybody was, nobody wanted it. My team didn’t want it, my family didn’t want it. They were pissed, bro. Team, LeBron team didn’t want it. No one wanted that to happen. The game of basketball didn’t want to happen. So I made sure I linked myself with LeBron even more because I knew we had to be so tight or it was going to be a failure and I didn’t want to be a part of that.