LAS VEGAS \u2014 Dwyane Wade said he knew it was the right time when he walked away from the NBA. The Miami Heat icon said that is why he appreciates it is not that time for former Heat teammate LeBron James, who is in play for the Heat and several other suitors during NBA free agency.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just should appreciate what I\u2019m and we all are witnessing, because we\u2019ve never seen this before,\u201d Wade said on his podcast network<\/a>. \u201cIt has to suck a little bit to get to this point in your career and still be really good.<\/p>\n \u201cLike I got to a point in my career and I was like, \u2018Well, I\u2019m not that good anymore. Like I can still play. I can still go play right now and still be able to play, but I won\u2019t be that good.\u2019 So it was\u00a0 easy for me to decide to walk away.\u201d<\/p>\n Wade retired from the NBA as a member of the Heat in 2019, at 37. James is 41 and coming off an All-Star season, with the NBA awaiting the decision<\/a> of where he chooses to play next.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s hard to make that decision when you\u2019re still really (expletive) good,\u201d Wade continued. \u201cLike who walks away when you\u2019re really, really good? Only a few. There ain\u2019t a lot of Barry Sanders, who just walk away when they\u2019re really, really good.\u201d<\/p>\n With James still part of ongoing Greatest of All-Time debates, Wade said there is no reason his former Heat championship teammate shouldn\u2019t be fielding offers to remain in the game.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd you\u2019re talking about a guy who\u2019s been doing this his entire life,\u201d Wade said. \u201cThis is what he knows better than anyone since he\u2019s been playing this game. He\u2019s become this generation\u2019s GOAT, and so how do you walk away from being a GOAT when you\u2019re still a GOAT?\u201d<\/p>\n Another prime James suitor is the Cleveland Cavaliers, which would mean a return to James\u2019 home area and a team he guided to the 2016 NBA title.<\/p>\n Cavaliers coach Kenny Atkinson said during the ongoing NBA Summer League that it only makes sense that NBA free agency has been put on hold as the league awaits a James decision,<\/p>\n \u201cListen,\u201d Atkinson said during a SiriusXM appearance<\/a>, \u201cthis is an exciting time for us, right? Like, we\u2019re in the mix for the greatest player of all time, my personal opinion. So, it\u2019s exciting, right? Like, man, I think you\u2019re nervous, but we understand how it is. Obviously he\u2019s earned that right to take his time.\u201d<\/p>\n While there has been silence from inside the Heat, the recruiting has been more public elsewhere, including a pitch from Golden State forward Draymond Green, with the Warriors mentioned as a team on James\u2019 list.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d be remiss if I don\u2019t take the opportunity to throw my pitch in there,\u201d Green said on his podcast<\/a>, with the two having spent time together recently. \u201cI\u2019d be crazy if we\u2019re together for X-amount of days and at no point am I like \u2018Yo, we need to chop it up, what the hell is going on? What are we doing?\u2019 Of course I did that and of course the pitch was crazy. I think I\u2019m pretty decent at it.\u201d<\/p>\n Former Heat guard Gary Payton, during an interview with the Action Network<\/a> addressed the Heat-James link<\/a>, as well as the ability of Heat President Pat Riley to fill out a contending roster.<\/p>\n \u201cI think Miami is in a good space, \u201d said Payton, a member of the Heat\u2019s 2006 championship team. \u201cI think Pat Riley does a great job of just taking his time and being patient, and then patience to do what he has to do. He pulled the deal off and got Giannis (Antetokounmpo), re-signed Andrew Wiggins, and now all he has to do is put it together. I think they need another point guard and another little scorer, and I think if they get that one more scorer, I think they\u2019ll be OK and legit.\u201d<\/p>\n UD on Tyler vs. Bam<\/p>\n The Warriors\u2019 Green also chimed in on Saturday\u2019s practice-court tussle in Las Vegas between Heat center Bam Adebayo and just-dealt former Heat guard Tyler Herro.<\/p>\n Green noted how Udonis Haslem, now a Heat player-development executive, had chimed in when Green punched then-Warriors teammate Jordan Poole during a 2022 Golden State practice, but how Haslem had not commented on Adebayo\u2019s contact with Herro.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I first saw this, I was like \u2018damn,\u2019 \u201d Green said. \u201cThis is two guys Udonis Haslem raised. If you raised this young guy in the light of what you was saying about me, and now he punches this other young guy, that y\u2019all kind of co-raised, are you going to have that same energy?\u201d<\/p>\n Haslem caught wind of Green\u2019s comment, and clapped back on social media, after noting Green was 32 at the time of his incident, with, \u201cFirst of all Bam is 28. Tyler is 26. Neither one of them got it all figured out yet. Maybe I was giving you too much credit at the time cause I thought you did so that\u2019s why I commented (in 2022).\u201d<\/p>\n Haslem, who was succeeded by Adebayo as Heat captain, continued in his post to Green about the general overreaction to Saturday\u2019s contact by Adebayo to Herro, \u201cAnyone who knows Bam knows he\u2019s strong as a baby bear. If he would\u2019ve unloaded on Tyler 100% it\u2019s over.\u201d<\/p>\n No action of yet has been taken by the NBA or the Heat regarding the incident at the temporary practice facility at the hotel many teams are sharing during the Las Vegas NBA Summer League.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAS VEGAS \u2014 Dwyane Wade said he knew it was the right time when he walked away from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":759643,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[2558,8173,355,99],"class_list":["post-759642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-latest-headlines","tag-miami-heat","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=759642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759642\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/759643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=759642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=759642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=759642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}