Miami Heat: Dwyane Wade to be Paul Pierce’s studio teammate?

With Dwyane Wade’s playing career done, the Miami Heat legend is drawing interest from ESPN and TNT to do in-studio work. Might he pair up with Paul Pierce?

With Dwyane Wade‘s NBA playing career in the rear-view mirror, it’s on to the next challenge for the Miami Heat great. The next challenge might just come in the form of in-studio analysis with either ESPN or TNT.

Now that the networks are ramping up their postseason coverage, they have both expressed interest in adding Wade to their in-studio coverage. Whether one or the other has any extra appeal to Wade remains to be seen, but there’s one outcome that Heat fans should be rooting for.

Late in the regular season, Paul Pierce claimed on ESPN’s NBA Countdown that he had a better career than Dwyane Wade. Obviously a preposterous claim, it was shouted down across Twitter and the internet at large almost immediately.

That claim could have inadvertently set up a post-career rivalry between Pierce and Wade. While being a great studio analyst is hard work and would take any newcomer some time to acclimate, Wade’s sharp basketball mind seems perfectly aligned for this task. If Dwyane Wade took a studio job and ended up having not just a better playing career but a better analyst career than Paul Pierce, perhaps nothing would make Miami Heat fans happier in this era of Heat basketball.

Obviously Wade wouldn’t have to join NBA Countdown and be Pierce’s studio-mate for this to happen, but the instant rivalry that would be in place if he chose to do this would be fascinating.

Now, Wade hasn’t indicated that this actually interests him yet, and the rigors of a full-time studio gig might not be appealing in any way so soon after ending his playing career, but this is something to keep an eye on.