Stephen A. Smith is ‘sick and tired’ of Dwyane Wade ‘diminishing’ his own career, after the Heat legend insisted he was not in the truly elite echelons of the NBA.
Speaking on his podcast The Why with Dwyane Wade, the three-time NBA champion compared basketball’s never-ending GOAT debate to a hotel, and spoke about how debates weighing up statistics versus championships are fruitless.
‘Let’s use a hotel [as an example]. A hotel has 30 floors. We talking bout’ an access key,’ he said.
‘When I look at the game, I look at who has an access key to get to the 30th floor. So the 30th-floor access key – in winning, I can’t go to 30. Bill Russell’s up there, [Michael] Jordan up there.
‘I may be on floor 25, but I ain’t at floor 30. That doesn’t mean anything to me, it just means that I don’t have access to go to that floor. So if you have not won a ring, it doesn’t mean you’re not colder than somebody who won a ring. You just don’t have access to go to the ring floors.’
While 13-time All-Star Wade ranked himself highly in NBA lore, Smith believed he was being far too humble.
Stephen A. Smith said he is ‘sick and tired’ of Dwyane Wade ‘diminishing’ his career
Wade, LeBron James and Chris Bosh formed a devastating ‘Big 3’ for the Miami Heat
‘My brother. I’m getting sick and tired of you diminishing who the hell you are,’ he said on ESPN’s First Take. ‘You ain’t no 25th floor. You’re the 30th floor. That’s a three-time champion there we’re talking about with Dwyane Wade. That’s a guy that recruited LeBron James. That’s a guy that sacrificed a lot of his game to facilitate LeBron James being who he is.
‘Because LeBron James was great – and greater than D-Wade – and D-Wade would be the first to admit that,’ Smith continued. ‘But LeBron hadn’t tapped into his pure greatness until he paired with Dwyane Wade.
Smith went on to call Wade ‘arguably’ the third-greatest shooting guard of all-time behind Jordan and Kobe Bryant.
‘D-Wade belongs on that 30th floor. Stop saying it’s less than that,’ Smith concluded. ‘I don’t care that Bill Russell has 11 rings. D-Wade is a champion. Period.’
Wade, who led the Heat to a championship in 2006 and won Finals MVP before James arrived four years later, acknowledged on his podcast that he could have produced even better stats if winning was not his priority.
However, the Miami icon welcomed LeBron James and Chris Bosh to Miami, and the trio made four straight trips to the Finals from 2011-14, winning twice.
Wade finished his career with averages of 22 points per game, 5.4 assists and 4.7 rebounds, though he averaged a career-high 30.2 in the 2008-09 season and won the scoring title that year.
The three-time All-Defense selection retired in 2019 and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2023.
