Answer to any critics: Wade is family - congrats on title and passing Lucas for most NBA points by an MU player
Written by: noreply@blogger.com (bamamarquettefan1)
(edit: text below, or at link)
http://www.crackedsidewalks.com/2012/06/answer-to-any-critics-wade-is-family.html
On October 14, Lazar Hayward feigned a heart attack in excitement upon seeing Dwyane Wade come on the court for Marquette's Midnight Madness. On January 31, Wade brought Lebron to cheer MU past Seton Hall. On April 1 in Boston, Wade finally found a seam in Doc Rivers' defense to hit a layup for his 14,859th NBA point with 6:35 to go in the second quarter to pass Mo Lucas as the top NBA scorer to ever come out of Marquette (see table of all players below). And Thursday, Wade was able to celebrate his second title after Hayward grabbed the last rebound and scored the final basket of the 2012 season.
DON'T BUY INTO THE "WADE FLOPS AND WHINES" BOGUS ATTACKS
Wade continued to make his Marquette family proud with his humility throughout the playoff interviews this year. I was sorry to see a few MU fans buy into the "Wade flops," or "Wade whines," bandwagon on a couple of occasions. Maybe I am sensitive to it because I run polls every week on how quickly people turn when someone is "spinning" them like coaches do when they hope to turn sentiment against a tough opponent to get a few calls to go the other way.
I love James Hardin, but in the final game only his beard was injured twice and he sat on Wade once to get three fouls called on the Heat. Wade has drawn 9,000 fouls in the NBA, and with the software now used to draw up EVERY one of them in video, it wasn't hard to put together 30 or so really bad calls in his favor when he clearly wasn't fouled (well under 1% of all fouls he'd drawn) to try swing the pendulum the other way with him NOT getting calls he should have on drives. Anyone who has ever referred basketball at half the speed of the NBA knows it's amazing how many calls NBA refs get right.
WADE A CLASS ACT AFTER THICK AND THIN
So don't buy into the critics. Wade has been such a class act these playoffs as he has complimented Doc Rivers' defense, Russell Westbrook's incredible play, and showed the humility of someone who realizes he became perceived as a bad guy last year because of the Celebration, but really seems to have his life in perspective. Even though I don't know Dwyane or Siovaughn even casually, I was devastated when word of the divorce ended the story book that had played out with the elementary school sweethearts celebrating the 2006 NBA title.
I always pray that married couples end up back together even though I realize in so many cases like this it would appear to be impossible. But in a tough situation, Wade's interview with Parenting and his interview shortly after the latest championship should certainly make all of the MU family proud to call him one of our own:
"I was so blessed at 24 to be able to win a championship, but I didn't go through enough ... (Now) after 6 years, going through a 15-win season, going through a lot of stuff in my personal life ... this right here ... I know how hard it was to get back to the mountaintop ... because nothing is guaranteed."
I'm not saying the MU family should all have rose colored glasses. I shocked an ESPN radio host this week when he said, "You have the best player in the league with one of the top 10 players in the league in Wade," and I responded by saying Wade may have just been top 15 this season. Wade is 30, and while people talk about leaving it all on the floor in a game, Wade is going to leave it all on the floor for his career. He is playing more beat up than he was for the first title, he is not a huge guy like Lebron who can take as many hits without eventual impact on the high flying act that was still evident on the late alley-oop lay-up in the clincher. Who knows how long he will continue to be truly elite – though he certainly was again for most of the playoffs.
WADE 2ND TO ONLY MCGUIRE; 7 NBA PLAYERS IN 2013 FOR 1ST TIME SINCE 1980?
When I wrote my book on Marquette basketball a few years back, the two pictures on the cover were of McGuire and Wade for a reason - Wade may always be the second most important figure in the history of Marquette basketball for the rest of history.
McGuire took MU to the Final Four twice and created enough buzz along the way that in 1979 and 1980 MU had eight players in the NBA for the only time in history (Whitehead, Lee, Ellis, Tatum, Walton, Lucas, Chones along with McNeill for his last year in 1979 and Toone for his only year in 1980).
Wade's 2003 season resulted in the other Final Four, and many a great guard coming to MU to follow in his footsteps through a Big East conference MU likely never could have joined without Wade's 2003 run. There is even a chance that next year there could be seven MU players in the NBA for only the fourth year in NBA history if DJO and Crowder make it and Hayward stays, since Novak, Matthews, Butler and Wade seem like locks.
Even during and after the McGuire years, the only other year that MU had seven NBA players was very briefly during the 1974 season when Allie McGuire played a few games to join McNeill, Chones, Lackey, Meminger, Thompson and Kojis. In fact, this year was the first season since 1981 that MU had five players in the NBA.
If we rate players by the NBA Efficiency Rating (the five positive things you can do for a team minus the three negative things you can do) then Mo Lucas is actually still the greatest MU/NBA player with his 9306 rebounds, but Wade could catch him in just two more years. Wesley Matthews is already the 10th greatest MU player ever to play in the NBA by this measure, and he could pass McNeill, Meminger, Whitehead and Thompson to be 6th all-time if he plays just five more years at the same level as his first few.
WILL #4 CHONES CALL CROWDER'S GAMES NEXT YEAR?
Maybe Jim Chones will be calling Jae Crowder's number during his Cleveland Cavaliers broadcasts next year, and DJO will be impersonated some of Wade's moves around the NBA.
Let's not be fair-weather fans of Wade though – whether he is still competing for titles or winding down his career as a role player one day, he will always live through the current and future greats who would have never come to MU without him lifting MU back to the top again and then staying loyal to the school when frankly he does not need us any more but appears to want us as family.
Here are the career NBA Efficiency Ratings for all MU players, with a "+" indicating a player who could still add to his total.
Rnk Player Pts Reb AST STL BLK TO FGMiss FTMiss NBA Eff
1 Maurice Lucas 14857 9306 2498 803 659 2316 6652 919 18236
2 Dwyane Wade 14990 3020 3697 1055 611 2115 5607 1219 14432+
3 Doc Rivers 9377 2625 4889 1563 351 1651 4121 667 12366
4 Jim Chones 9821 6427 1292 391 774 1165 4590 660 12290
5 Don Kojis 9948 4555 1112 89 16 4906 799 10015
6 George Thompson 8114 1457 1561 183 30 954 3395 657 6339
7 Jerome Whitehead 4423 3268 374 251 200 696 1832 315 5673
8 Dean Meminger 2552 1086 1046 242 28 1108 323 3523
9 Larry McNeill 2533 1440 225 183 78 71 1048 199 3141
10 Wesley Matthews 2973 673 401 262 39 304 1280 106 2658+
11 Tony Smith 2504 735 881 319 79 442 1345 157 2574
12 Earl Tatum 2508 682 507 319 101 289 1306 98 2424
13 Jim McIlvaine 1072 1243 105 136 691 231 525 183 2308
14 Lloyd Walton 1442 370 1243 264 28 422 720 99 2106
15 Chris Crawford 1654 547 154 101 80 232 784 78 1442
16 Steve Novak 1372 351 73 51 24 58 579 9 1225+
17 Travis Diener 854 243 432 76 9 99 470 17 1028
18 Bo Ellis 613 482 113 69 84 145 312 52 852
19 Butch Lee 773 137 307 87 1 164 362 57 722
20 Sam Worthen 239 116 118 57 6 93 100 15 328
21 Bob Lackey 413 164 137 1 0 121 201 68 325
22 Amal McCaskill 204 213 36 24 36 52 134 27 300
23 Lazar Hayward 197 86 32 15 8 28 124 14 172+
24 Jimmy Butler 109 56 14 11 5 14 47 13 121+
25 Michael Wilson 108 36 45 15 5 28 50 10 121
26 Tom Copa 48 36 3 2 6 8 18 9 60
27 Bernard Toone 55 34 12 4 5 16 41 2 51
28 Joe Thomas 55 43 17 63 11 41
29 Brian Brunkhorst 25 13 3 5 5 4 27
30 Allie McGuire 4 2 1 0 0 2 0 5
31 Jae Crowder 0+
32 Darius Johnson-Odom 0+
33 Bill Downey 0 0 2 0 0
34 Gene Berce 10 0 11 5 0
only 7 points and Lazar passes Amal?
crazzzzzzzy
Lol - and this is just regular season so it doesn't count the 2 points for lazar for his crucial weave through the heat subs and left handed layup to cut the final deficit by 2!
Crazier still is Doc, Cochise, and Chones didn't break the 10k barrier, though they were close.
Where's Jerel on the list? Didn't he get a couple mins on Hornets roster, maybe no burn eh?......
Quote from: muwarrior97 on June 24, 2012, 01:17:16 PM
Where's Jerel on the list? Didn't he get a couple mins on Hornets roster, maybe no burn eh?......
He never actually got into a game, as I recall, the closest he came was being available on the bench.
You can always count on bama to bring reason back into the narrative.
One thing that gets overlooked is that last year Wade should already have had his second NBA championship & Finals MVP trophy, but LeBron & the role players played terribly in games 2 & 4. The Heat lost those games by 2 & 3 points each, with Wade averaging 34 points on 13/20 (65%) from the field with 6 assists, 5 rebounds, 3 steals, a block, and 1.5 turnovers. In those two games James averaged 14 points on 6.5/13 (42%) from the field with 4.5 turnovers. Joel Anthony averaged 2 points in 28 mpg. Mario Chalmers went 1/9 from three. Bosh went 4/16 in game 2. Had any of those guys contributed just a LITTLE bit more, it could/should have been a sweep, and Wade would be considered one of the best clutch Finals performers ever.
Yep, it's Wade's team. He just lets James do the heavy lifting.
Quote from: Jamailman on June 25, 2012, 08:11:32 AM
You can always count on bama to bring reason back into the narrative.
One thing that gets overlooked is that last year Wade should already have had his second NBA championship & Finals MVP trophy, but LeBron & the role players played terribly in games 2 & 4. The Heat lost those games by 2 & 3 points each, with Wade averaging 34 points on 13/20 (65%) from the field with 6 assists, 5 rebounds, 3 steals, a block, and 1.5 turnovers. In those two games James averaged 14 points on 6.5/13 (42%) from the field with 4.5 turnovers. Joel Anthony averaged 2 points in 28 mpg. Mario Chalmers went 1/9 from three. Bosh went 4/16 in game 2. Had any of those guys contributed just a LITTLE bit more, it could/should have been a sweep, and Wade would be considered one of the best clutch Finals performers ever.
Solid post. Good point. Also, great article Bama. Spot on.
I will admit, LBJ still made it really hard for me to cheer for the heat... I appreciate the perspective.