After Dwyane Wade spent the first decade-plus of his NBA career playing for the Miami Heat, he signed with another team in the summer of 2016. Specifically, he signed a two-year deal with the Chicago Bulls, his hometown team, as he’s a Chicago native.
But Wade’s stint in Chicago wasn’t all that memorable. He spent just one season — which ended in a first-round exit — with the Bulls before the team agreed to a buyout with him prior to the start of the 2017-18 campaign.
Former NBA guard Michael Carter-Williams, who was also a member of the 2016-17 Bulls along with Wade, recently said that there where times when the team perhaps felt like the 13-time All-Star could have done a better job as a leader during his short tenure in Chicago.
“Yeah, I mean, I think D-Wade was in, honestly bro, in a tough position,” Carter-Williams said regarding stories that Wade wasn’t fully bought in with Chicago or a positive figure in the locker room. “Comin’ from Miami, towards the end of his career, in a new place. I don’t know if he knew exactly what his role was.
“I think that havin’ Jimmy [Butler] and havin’ [Rajon] Rondo, I just, again, I just think he was tryna figure it out. At times, I could see why people would say that, like, ‘He’s not bought in.’ He was injured a lot of the times. I think us as players needed to realize, like, ‘He is older.'”
Carter-Williams explained that due to injury reasons and his age, Wade wasn’t always able to be a full factor in practice, which might have led to some misconceptions about Wade’s level of buy-in.
He then continued.
“There was times where he would be a leader and speak on his past experiences and try to put us on game to certain things and try to lead the best way he could,” he said. “And then there was times where maybe we thought he could’ve been a better leader.”
The former teammate of Wade appeared in 45 games with the Bulls during the 2016-17 regular season and started 19 of those contests. In his appearances, he averaged 6.6 points, 3.4 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 0.8 steals per contest. He shot 36.6 percent from the field and 23.4 percent from 3-point range.
Wade was still better than many other shooting guards in the NBA during his time with Chicago, even if he was at the tail end of his time in the pros. He averaged 18.3 points, 4.5 rebounds and 3.8 assists per game in his one season as a Bull.
However, Chicago’s trio of Wade, Butler and Rondo wasn’t as successful as fans of the Bulls were maybe anticipating it would be. Chicago just barely qualified for the 2017 NBA Playoffs as the No. 8 seed in the Eastern Conference.
Then, after it appeared as if the Bulls were primed for a first-round upset over the top-seeded Boston Celtics, Chicago lost the final four games of the best-of-seven series and was eliminated in six games. The Bulls took the first two games at TD Garden in Boston, but Rondo suffered a thumb fracture in their Game 2 victory and was sidelined for the rest of the series.
Earlier this year, Wade admitted that he made mistakes during his Bulls tenure and said he “wasn’t really a good vet” to his Chicago teammates. He said he was the problem and issued an apology.