The before and after of the Dwyane Wade statue is shocking.
It’s hard to get the internet sports community to agree on anything these days, but the Miami Heat’s statue of Dwyane Wade brought about a rare level of consensus opinion. The Heat unveiled their Wade statue about two years ago as they were beginning the 2024-25 season, and absolutely everyone agreed it was terrible. The statue was so bad that Wade himself struggled to defend it, saying the statue didn’t need to look like him to capture an artistic moment. That’s a nice spin from a company man, but it didn’t stop anyone from getting their jokes off.
The Heat heard the slander, and years later, and they’ve finally done something about it. Miami updated the Wade statue outside of the Kaseya Center to actually make it look like D-Wade. The face on the statue was redesigned over the offseason, and it’s a big upgrade. Here’s a before and after photo of the Wade statue, with the updated version on the left and the old version on the right.
Heat fans admitted they were unreasonably angry about the initial version of the statue, and it makes sense. Wade put the team on his back to lead them to the 2006 NBA championship early in his career, and then helped recruit LeBron James and Chris Bosh to South Beach, which brought the franchise two more titles. The Heat did him dirty on the initial statue, but at least they cared enough to fix it.
Here are some more looks at the updated statue:
The Heat have had a rough start to the season, but it’s only been a few games. Miami finally got its first win of the Giannis Antetokounmpo era earlier this week, and fixing the statue feels like a good omen for the rest of the season. I wasn’t very high on the Heat coming into the season, but if they put the same care into their on-court product that they put into improving the Wade statue, they should be just fine.
Wade is the greatest player in Heat history, and I will accept no other argument. This man is the Miami Heat. He finally has a statue worthy of his ability as a player.