The Making of Dwyane Wade

Basketball, and what comes after

- D. Watkins

On a Sunday in October, a group of spectators gathered outside the Kaseya Center, the home of the Miami Heat.

They sat in rows of chairs, arranged in a half circle. The crowd was there for the unveiling of a statue of Dwyane Wade, the superstar who had led the team to three NBA championships.

I wasn't enough of a VIP to get a seat, so I found a spot on a gate during the unveiling, behind Wade and his family. I knew he had been anxiously awaiting the day. I'd watched, eight months earlier, as he'd paced around an early clay model in the sculptors' studio, asking detailed questions-about the definition of his arms and legs, the way his jersey would be rendered. I knew how much this statue meant to him. And I knew he thought it captured him, as a player, perfectly.

The statue was made by Rotblatt Amrany Studio, a firm that has designed monuments to some of the most well-known athletes in America: Ernie Banks, Barry Sanders, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant. When I'd visited the studio, in the Chicago suburbs, the sculpture of Wade ended at the wrists. I'd asked a member of the studio's team where the hands were; he'd explained that the sculptors still needed more reference photos. "Wade has really, really big hands," he'd said. "The biggest hands on a human that I ever saw." At the unveiling, flames shot up into the air and two black panels that had been concealing the statue slid apart. When the smoke cleared, there it was: a bronze behemoth, muscles rippling, Heat jersey clinging to the torso, hands appropriately disproportionate.

The sculpture was based on a moment in a 2009 game against the Chicago Bulls. In the second overtime, Wade stole the ball and made a running, game-winning three-pointer as time expired. He then leaped onto the scorers' table and yelled, "This is my house!" The face of the sculpture was a rictus of fury, with furrowed eyebrows and bared teeth. It also looked nothing like Dwyane Wade.