Every young baller has an idol who influenced their decision to pursue basketball as a career. But the greats of the game can pinpoint the exact moment the person they looked up to won their hearts—a moment that helped them turn their dream into a stark reality. Dwyane Wade had a dream that took shape and landed him in the Hall of Fame. His idol? The one and only Michael Jordan.
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D-Wade spoke about his affinity for His Airness in a section of his biography A Father First, which was released in 2012. In the book, the Heat legend opened up about being raised on the dangerous south side of Chicago, an area riddled with gangs, drugs, and violence.
Wade battled through and made basketball his primary focus. His love of the game kept him out of trouble, but he was never certain that he was good enough to make it to the pros.
That was, of course, until 1991. That year, he watched Jordan lead the Bulls to its first NBA Championship and go through their archrivals, the Bad Boy Detroit Pistons, in the Conference Finals to do it.
The triumph kickstarted a dynasty for the Windy City that is still talked about in basketball to this day. “The whole 1990-91 season had been a fairy tale come true for all of Chi-town,” said Wade in his book, his love of the team and MJ then at full swing.
He wasn’t alone in that love, either. “Jordan fever caught hold that spring and summer in Chicago like an unprecedented epidemic,” he wrote, implying that the influence of MJ had already begun to reshape his life. “Local teams of young hopefuls with dreams like mine flocked madly to basketball courts in parks, schoolyards, and gyms. We all wanted to fly.”
From that point on, Wade’s history was cemented. He played ball for Richard Harris High School in Chicago, then committed to Marquee University in Wisconsin. In 2003, he was selected 5th overall by the Miami Heat, and thus, another basketball legend had been made. Michael Jordan’s game forever changed Wade and as he detailed in A Father First, he is forever grateful to MJF because of it.
Dwyane Wade called MJ his GOAT ahead of his Hall of Fame acceptance speech
There was no better time for D-Wade to fully express how much he admired Jordan than during the press tour for his Hall of Fame induction in 2023. That year, the three-time NBA Champion spoke with Yahoo! Sports and referred to MJ as the moniker that everyone calls him.
“My G.O.A.T has always been Michael Jordan,” Wade said. “Look at the way I played. I played a lot like (Jordan). I tried to emulate Michael Jordan.”
Wade isn’t alone in labeling Jordan as the greatest of all time, but he might be one of the best examples of how much Jordan meant to the city of Chicago. The Second City has put Jordan up on the god-tier pedestal that he belongs on. Gods save the day. Gods change the world. Dwyane Wade was just a young boy living on the South Side and Michael Jordan helped him see the full potential he had.
