Answer to any critics: Wade is family - congrats on title and passing Lucas for most NBA points by an MU player

On October 14, Lazar Hayward feigned a heart attack in excitement upon seeing Dwyane Wade come on the court for Marquette’s Midnight Madness.  On January 31, Wade brought Lebron to cheer MU past Seton Hall.  On April 1 in Boston, Wade finally found a seam in Doc Rivers’ defense to hit a layup for his 14,859th NBA point with 6:35 to go in the second quarter to pass Mo Lucas as the top NBA scorer to ever come out of Marquette (see table of all players below).  And Thursday, Wade was able to celebrate his second title after Hayward grabbed the last rebound and scored the final basket of the 2012 season.

“I was so blessed at 24 to be able to win a championship, but I didn’t go through enough … (Now) after 6 years, going through a 15-win season, going through a lot of stuff in my personal life … this right here … I know how hard it was to get back to the mountaintop … because nothing is guaranteed.” – Dwyane Wade response to the difference between his two titles

DON’T BUY INTO THE “WADE FLOPS AND WHINES” BOGUS ATTACKS

Wade continued to make his Marquette family proud with his humility throughout the playoff interviews this year.  I was sorry to see a few MU fans buy into the “Wade flops,” or “Wade whines,” bandwagon on a couple of occasions.  Maybe I am sensitive to it because I run polls every week on how quickly people turn when someone is "spinning" them like coaches do when they hope to turn sentiment against a tough opponent to get a few calls to go the other way.

I love James Hardin, but in the final game only his beard was injured twice and he sat on Wade once to get three fouls called on the Heat.  Wade has drawn 9,000 fouls in the NBA, and with the software now used to draw up EVERY one of them in video, it wasn’t hard to put together 30 or so really bad calls in his favor when he clearly wasn’t fouled (well under 1% of all fouls he’d drawn) to try swing the pendulum the other way with him NOT getting calls he should have on drives.  Anyone who has ever referred basketball at half the speed of the NBA knows it’s amazing how many calls NBA refs get right.

WADE A CLASS ACT AFTER THICK AND THIN

So don’t buy into the critics.  Wade has been such a class act these playoffs as he has  complimented Doc Rivers’ defense, Russell Westbrook’s incredible play, and showed the humility of someone who realizes he became perceived as a bad guy last year because of the Celebration, but really seems to have his life in perspective.  Even though I don’t know Dwyane or Siovaughn even casually, I was devastated when word of the divorce ended the story book  that had played out with the elementary school sweethearts celebrating the 2006 NBA title. 

I always pray that married couples end up back together even though I realize in so many cases like this it would appear to be impossible.  But in a tough situation, Wade's interview with Parenting and his interview shortly after the latest championship should certainly make all of the MU family proud to call him one of our own:

“I was so blessed at 24 to be able to win a championship, but I didn’t go through enough … (Now) after 6 years, going through a 15-win season, going through a lot of stuff in my personal life … this right here … I know how hard it was to get back to the mountaintop … because nothing is guaranteed.” 

I’m not saying the MU family should all have rose colored glasses.  I shocked an ESPN radio host this week when he said, “You have the best player in the league with one of the top 10 players in the league in Wade,” and I responded by saying Wade may have just been top 15 this season.  Wade is 30, and while people talk about leaving it all on the floor in a game, Wade is going to leave it all on the floor for his career.  He is playing more beat up than he was for the first title, he is not a huge guy like Lebron who can take as many hits without eventual impact on the high flying act that was still evident on the late alley-oop lay-up in the clincher.  Who knows how long he will continue to be truly elite – though he certainly was again for most of the playoffs.

WADE 2ND TO ONLY MCGUIRE; 7 NBA PLAYERS IN 2013 FOR 1ST TIME SINCE 1980?

When I wrote my book on Marquette basketball a few years back, the two pictures on the cover were of McGuire and Wade for a reason - Wade may always be the second most important figure in the history of Marquette basketball for the rest of history.

McGuire took MU to the Final Four twice and created enough buzz along the way that in 1979 and 1980 MU had eight players in the NBA for the only time in history (Whitehead, Lee, Ellis, Tatum, Walton, Lucas, Chones along with McNeill for his last year in 1979 and Toone for his only year in 1980).

Wade’s 2003 season resulted in the other Final Four, and many a great guard coming to MU to follow in his footsteps through a Big East conference MU likely never could have joined without Wade's 2003 run.  There is even a chance that next year there could be seven MU players in the NBA for only the fourth year in NBA history if DJO and Crowder make it and Hayward stays, since Novak, Matthews, Butler and Wade seem like locks.

Even during and after the McGuire years, the only other year that MU had seven NBA players was very briefly during the 1974 season when Allie McGuire played a few games to join McNeill, Chones, Lackey, Meminger, Thompson and Kojis. In fact, this year was the first season since 1981 that MU had five players in the NBA.

If we rate players by the NBA Efficiency Rating (the five positive things you can do for a team minus the three negative things you can do) then Mo Lucas is actually still the greatest MU/NBA player with his 9306 rebounds, but Wade could catch him in just two more years.  Wesley Matthews is already the 10th greatest MU player ever to play in the NBA by this measure, and he could pass McNeill, Meminger, Whitehead and Thompson to be 6th all-time if he plays just five more years at the same level as his first few.

WILL #4 CHONES CALL CROWDER’S GAMES NEXT YEAR?

Maybe Jim Chones will be calling Jae Crowder’s number during his Cleveland Cavaliers broadcasts next year, and DJO will be impersonated some of Wade’s moves around the NBA.

Let’s not be fair-weather fans of Wade though – whether he is still competing for titles or winding down his career as a role player one day, he will always live through the current and future greats who would have never come to MU without him lifting MU back to the top again and then staying loyal to the school when frankly he does not need us any more but appears to want us as family.

Here are the career NBA Efficiency Ratings for all MU players, with a “+” indicating a player who could still add to his total.

Rnk	Player	Pts	Reb	AST	STL	BLK	TO	FGMiss	FTMiss	NBA Eff
1	Maurice Lucas	14857	9306	2498	803	659	2316	6652	919	18236
2	Dwyane Wade	14990	3020	3697	1055	611	2115	5607	1219	14432+
3	Doc Rivers	9377	2625	4889	1563	351	1651	4121	667	12366
4	Jim Chones	9821	6427	1292	391	774	1165	4590	660	12290
5	Don Kojis	9948	4555	1112	89	16		4906	799	10015
6	George Thompson	8114	1457	1561	183	30	954	3395	657	6339
7	Jerome Whitehead	4423	3268	374	251	200	696	1832	315	5673
8	Dean Meminger	2552	1086	1046	242	28		1108	323	3523
9	Larry McNeill	2533	1440	225	183	78	71	1048	199	3141
10	Wesley Matthews	2973	673	401	262	39	304	1280	106	2658+
11	Tony Smith	2504	735	881	319	79	442	1345	157	2574
12	Earl Tatum	2508	682	507	319	101	289	1306	98	2424
13	Jim McIlvaine	1072	1243	105	136	691	231	525	183	2308
14	Lloyd Walton	1442	370	1243	264	28	422	720	99	2106
15	Chris Crawford	1654	547	154	101	80	232	784	78	1442
16	Steve Novak	1372	351	73	51	24	58	579	9	1225+
17	Travis Diener	854	243	432	76	9	99	470	17	1028
18	Bo Ellis	613	482	113	69	84	145	312	52	852
19	Butch Lee	773	137	307	87	1	164	362	57	722
20	Sam Worthen	239	116	118	57	6	93	100	15	328
21	Bob Lackey	413	164	137	1	0	121	201	68	325
22	Amal McCaskill	204	213	36	24	36	52	134	27	300
23	Lazar Hayward	197	86	32	15	8	28	124	14	172+
24	Jimmy Butler	109	56	14	11	5	14	47	13	121+
25	Michael Wilson	108	36	45	15	5	28	50	10	121
26	Tom Copa	48	36	3	2	6	8	18	9	60
27	Bernard Toone	55	34	12	4	5	16	41	2	51
28	Joe Thomas	55	43	17				63	11	41
29	Brian Brunkhorst	25	13	3			5	5	4	27
30	Allie McGuire	4	2	1	0	0		2	0	5
31	Jae Crowder									0+
32	Darius Johnson-Odom									0+
33	Bill Downey	0		0				2	0	0
34	Gene Berce	10		0				11	5	0