With all the accomplishments and accolades Dwyane Wade has around his belt, the Los Angeles Lakers must realize that he's not anymore the type of a player worth pursuing for. Because no matter which way it is dissected, the fact is Wade will not be wearing the purple-and-gold jersey to become the Messiah who will bring the franchise back to title contention. No Lakers Nation, he's just in for the money.
For starters, the Wade to Lakers hoopla started to draw traction following a tweet by Sports Illustrated writer Chris Mannix detailing a mutual interest between the two parties. And as expected, everybody went bonkers the moment they heard that there's indeed a chance that D-Wade and Kobe Bryant, two of the best off-guards in the last 10 years, could share the same court together as teammates next season.
While there's no doubt the prospect of having a double-headed monster of Wade and Bryant will make the Lakers a huge draw on National TV once again, the reality is it doesn't make any sense on a purely basketball standpoint.
Not only there's going to be an overlap of position and skills-set, Wade isn't just the right guy to carry the torch once Bryant hangs his jersey for good. Indeed, the 33-year old superstar put up a solid rock statistical line of 21.5 points, 4.8 assists and 3.5 rebounds in 31 minutes per game (ESPN Stats), which was the highest in the last three years. However, his chronic knee problem allowed Wade to play only 62 games, the fourth consecutive time he appeared under 70 games and seven overall in his 11-year career.
According to NBA pundits, Wade's ongoing battle with his shaky knees is a cause of concern for any front-office executive, including Miami president of basketball operations Pat Riley who are unsurprisingly iffy to commit a big contract extension with his long-tenured guard. The contract negotiation dispute has reportedly created tensions between both camps to the point that Wade is already pondering over a potential move to the Lakers in hope of getting the max money he thought is being taken away from him.
With a projected cap space money that could reach as high as $28 million (if they don't pick up the second year option for Jordan Hill), the Lakers are capable of offering Wade a contract worth at least $15MM a year. However, it's just not an ideal investment for a player whose glory days are way behind him.
Unfortunately, despite red flags riddled all over it, the Lakers seems ready to pull the trigger on this deal. After all, Wade is in position to become the latest big name free-agent acquisition in the last three years since they landed Steve Nash in a sign-and-trade coup in 2012. Everybody knows how the Nash experiment wound up, but the bad memories of that deal won't stop the Lakers from falling in love with yet another ageing superstar standing on cranky knees. Sadly, the Lakers are on the verge of falling into a deadly trap once more.