Dwyane Wade has seen the jokes and the criticism. He just doesn’t care.
The former Miami Heat star spoke out Monday about the new statue depicting him outside the team’s arena in South Florida, which drew widespread condemnation and jokes after many thought it looked nothing like him when it was unveiled Sunday.
“I care, but I don’t,” Wade said, via The Associated Press. “The world of social media is all about opinions. Everyone has an opinion. Everyone, use your opinion. Please talk more about us. Talk more about a statue, stop by to see it, take some pictures, send some memes. We don’t care.”
Wade spent nearly his entire Hall of Fame career with the Heat, whom he helped lead to three NBA titles. He is still the team’s all-time leading scorer and is the first player in franchise history to actually get a statue.
Even though it doesn’t really look like him, especially on his face, Wade loves it.
Why can’t we get statues of people… that look like the people they’re supposed to represent? Nobody sees Dwyane Wade here. pic.twitter.com/AMc36O7hVU
— Charles Robinson (@CharlesRobinson) October 27, 2024
“If I wanted it to look like me, I would just stand outside the arena and y’all can take pictures,” he said. ‘It doesn’t have to look like me. It is the artistic version of a moment that happened and we try to amplify that.”
Wade was directly involved in the statue’s creation, which took approximately 800 hours to complete. The moment was taken from a game against the Chicago Bulls in 2009, after Wade hit a buzzer-beater to lift the Heat to victory in double overtime.
Although he was quick to defend the artists who created the statue of him, he knows they should just laugh, brush aside the criticism and move on.
“I don’t know many people with a statue. Will you?” he said. “Does anyone here know anything about the statue process? No one out there does either. And so it’s an incredible process to be a part of. And it’s a complicated process.”
