Dwyane Wade Defends Miami Heat Statue: 'It Don't Need to Look Like Me'
Wade jokingly asked, "Who is that guy?," during speech after his statue was unveiled.
Dwyane Wade has addressed the reaction to the statue unveiled by the Miami Heat outside the Kaseya Center on Sunday.
Wade described the statue as an "artistic version of a moment," which occurred in 2009 when he jumped on the scorer's table and declared, "this is my house," after knocking down a game-winning three-pointer at the buzzer to defeat the Chicago Bulls in double overtime.
"If I wanted it to look like me, I’d just stand outside the arena and y'all can take photos," Wade said, according to ESPN. "It don't need to look like me. It's the artistic version of a moment that happened that we’re trying to cement."
Wade's statement that his statue does not "need to look like me" addresses the belief among many social media users that it does not resemble the Heat legend.
"I care, but I don't," Wade said of the viral response. "The social media world is about opinions. Everyone has an opinion. Everyone, use y'all opinions. Please talk more about us. Talk more about a statue, come on down to see it, take some photos, send some memes. We don't care."
Wade also came to the defense of the sculptors who spent 800 hours working on the statue.
"I don’t know a lot of people with a statue. Do you?," he asked. "Anybody here, y’all know anything about the process of a statue? No one out there do neither. And so, it’s an unbelievable process to be a part of. And it’s a complicated process."
The sculptors said Wade was directly involved in the process.
While Wade was understandably moved by the statue, not everyone was pleased and took to X, formerly Twitter, to roast the Heat legend. Wade was involved in the statue’s creation, as discussed at a press conference on Sunday with sculptors Omri Amrany and Oscar León.
