Miami Heat: Dwyane Wade season recap and grade

The Miami Heat’s season has come to an inevitable close. With the playoffs being a party that the Heat weren’t invited to, it’s time for season report cards and appropriately as such, here’s Dwyane Wade’s grade.

Coming into a Miami Heat season in which the world knew he was going to retire, because he told us so, there may have been seemingly low expectations for the future first ballot Hall of Famer Dwyane Wade. Boy did he prove those people wrong, as he not only had a season befitting of someone who wasn’t close to hanging them up, but he may have just been the best player on the team.

Playing in 72 games this season, the sixth-most games he’s ever played in during his 16 year NBA career, Wade reminded people of why he is arguably the third-greatest two-guard to ever play the game. He averaged 15 points, four rebounds and four assists on an effective field goal percentage of 48 percent. Although these numbers may seem average at first glance, it isn’t until you realize that he did this in only 26 minutes off the bench that they become rather impressive numbers.

To put things into the correct perspective, over his career as a member of the Miami Heat, Wade has averaged about 35 minutes per game. If you did the appropriate math, where he was giving you about four points, a rebound and an assist every four and a half minutes, his numbers project out to 23 points, six rebounds and six assists if afforded the same amount of minutes as he’s averaged over his career.

Not only was his overall production to playing time ratio impressive, but it was awfully impressive when thinking about when he chose to make an impact, or get those numbers for this Miami Heat team. Not only was Wade one of the de facto closers, in that he got the nod when they needed a big shot or bucket to potentially win a game, but he was often times a jump starter. Due to this team’s inability to create shots at times, Dwyane Wade was a crucial component of not only the bench unit, but the game plan as he was often times one a few players that could create his own shot.

Although the advanced metrics will say that he was a negative when it came to his offensive plus-minus figures, it was clear to those watching the games that his effect on the offense and the ability to generate offense for this Miami Heat team, was often times way more good than bad. Also consider the fact that at just over 15 points per game, he was the eighth-ranked bench scorer in the league, while also averaging one of his lower turnover seasons of his career. As numbers can be deceiving, you do have to take them into account, that would lead to him receiving at minimum a grade of A- for his contributions to this Miami Heat team.

Although his offensive game seemed as though he could go another two or three years, there were times when D-Wade fell asleep on the defensive end of the floor. Although he was never quite a full-on liability, there were moments when it seemed as though he was.

Although he averaged right at a steal per game and half a block per game, Wade had lapses where he would lose his man, often times giving up a bucket in the process. He was still a capable defender, off and on ball, but there were just more situations this season where he seemed to fall asleep on the defensive end of the court.

Just as with the offensive side of the ball, you go with what you can see with your eyes, but you have to also factor the numbers or metrics into the equation when doling out grades for the season. When looking at his defensive plus/minus rating, Dwyane Wade was dead even at 0. What this means is that compared to an average player on an average team, D-Wade allowed no more points per 100 possessions than they would have, which is good considering it could have been a lot worst than that.

When you combine the quantitative data with the qualitative data in this scenario, or take into account the numbers/metrics and what you were able to see with your eyes, Wade grades out to a low B- at best and a C+ at worst. Although you would like to meet somewhere in the middle, there isn’t anything between those grades. What compounds the confusion even further is that there were games where he looked higher than a B and some where he looked lower than a C, but because it’s D-Wade, we will roll with the B-.

When considering the overall grade for Dwyane Wade’s season, the combination of his offensive A- and defensive B- would lend itself towards him earning a B+ overall. However, there are other factors here to consider.

When you take into account that he was one of the oldest players on this team, he was counted on to do more than he should have, and he was key in a lot of victories they achieved, that does a little for his grade. You also have to grade him on a curve, considering it is D-Wade and he was in the midst of his One last Dance. So, with no further ado:

Final Grade- A- 

As Anthony Davis‘s shirt read, that’s all folks!