Former NBA veteran Tony Allen recently shed some light on how hard it was to contain Miami Heat icon Dwyane Wade during their playing days together.
Tony Allen names Dwyane Wade as the toughest player he ever had to guard
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“I got to shine some light on Flash,” Allen told Ryen Russillo on his podcast. “Although Kobe [Bryant] is Kobe, big respect to Kobe. I just think when I used to go against my hometown co-workers. D-Wade at the time, good brother of mine too, I thought he was always trying to go at my head. I thought it was my duty to try to stop him and boy was he tough. He get to that line. He slash. He wasn’t just your typical superstar where he just catch it in the post or catch it on the wing and just go to work. He used the pick-and-roll. Sometimes in the offense if he can’t get his shot going off the pull-up, backdoor cuts. You got to be aware of a superstar staying this active.”
Allen, 39, is one of the best defensive guards in NBA history.
The former first-round pick made an All-Defensive team six times in his career. He collected 8.1 points, 3.5 boards and 1.4 steals per contest over the course of his career in the league.
Of course, his duels with Wade were fun to watch. As a matter of fact, Allen guarded Wade a ton during the three-time champion’s apogee in the league.
While Wade had some of his best scoring runs during the early part of his career, he remodeled his game after superstar LeBron James arrived to Miami in 2010. The 6-foot-4 guard capitulated to James and learned how to be an offensive threat from different angles.
The Heat’s all-time leading scorer, who retired in 2019, has career averages of 22.0 points, 5.4 assists and 4.7 rebounds per game.
