Heat may be in holding pattern, but not Wade

Ira Winderman

How do you stride through a season that's little more than running in place?

How do you reach for greater heights with your individual game after scaling the top of the league in scoring?

How do you compete for ultimate glory, like the kind you had in the 2006 NBA Finals or the type you relished in 2008 in Beijing, when ultimately your season almost assuredly will be over when April turns into May?

Welcome to Dwyane Wade's world, a limbo that essentially has him in basketball purgatory as he and his team await next summer's free agency.

On one hand, he is expected to push through all 82 games so his team can improve on last season's No. 5 playoff seed and first-round ouster.

On the other hand, even before the turn of the calendar it is obvious his Miami Heat is not crashing an Eastern Conference Big Three that has grown into a Big Four, with the Hawks moving to the level of the Magic, Celtics and Cavaliers.

On one hand, it sure was a hoot leading the league in scoring last season.

On the other, he is trying to be respectful of his team's desire to develop youthful pieces such as Michael Beasley, Mario Chalmers and Dorell Wright, while also respecting veteran teammates such as Jermaine O'Neal and Udonis Haslem.

So Kobe and LeBron push forward at a different level, at a different speed.

And Wade?

Well, if his team's .500-ish record isn't enough of a clue, he essentially is stalled.

"I mean, to be realistic right now, we're a playoff-contending team," he says.

Notice the word choice. Not "championship" contending.

As for that scoring title last season? It came with a 43-39 record, limiting its curb appeal.

So this season there is a balance, trying to get more from his teammates, appreciating that only through their growth can there eventually be another championship chance in Miami.

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"If people have high expectations of me, that's great," he says. "I would love to live up to expectations every night. But I'm not really looking to live up to people's expectations. I'm just trying to do what I can within the organization, within the team concepts, as well. That's my job to do. It's not really my job to go out there and say everybody wants me to score 40 every night. That's what the fans want to see every night. I wish I could give it to them every night. But that's not what the Miami Heat wants me to do every night.

"I'm really trying to continue to help everybody grow. And I'm not trying to be in a battle with Kobe and LeBron and those guys, who are trying to lead the league in scoring. That's not where I'm at. Of course, as the season goes on, I'll have big games. Every night I go out there trying to make sure I lead this team."

Had Wade committed to an extension last summer, it is possible Heat President Pat Riley might already have had this team in championship trim.

Instead, everything remains on hold, except the Heat's need to find what it has and otherwise would need should its plan come to fruition of adding an A-list free agent alongside Wade next summer.

"On the offensive end, I've tried to tone back," Wade says. "The defensive efforts and rebounding and all of those things, you can go 110 percent on everything. Offensively, I've got a guy like Michael Beasley who's growing into a player. If I'm selfishly trying to continue to live up to the expectations of the outside, then I'm not letting him grow, I'm not letting Jermaine, who worked very hard this summer, get an opportunity to show why he worked so hard.

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"So me as a teammate, as a team player, I have to let other guys grow. I know Udonis is coming off the bench and he's shooting the ball well, so I have to make sure he gets his reps, as well."

And then Wade puts it all in perspective.

"Last year," he says, "maybe I was a little selfish individually. I wanted to come and prove everybody wrong. This year, I'm more making sure that other guys can prove that they've gotten better, as well, that their hard work is showing."

At times, the M-V-3! chants have returned to AmericanAirlines Arena. But it is nothing like the adulation LeBron receives in Cleveland or Kobe at Staples Center.

Those individual fires still can be fanned because championship aspirations burn.

With Wade, it's almost as if he is at a career intermission, waiting for the second act.

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"I think last year was the perfect storm," Riley says of Wade going from Olympic gold to scoring champion. "He went into that year in the best shape of his entire life and also mentally in a place where he was going to prove to everybody, because people were doubting him, that he was the best player in the league, best player in the world. He had that kind of season."

In many ways, Wade is where Kobe was in those initial post-Shaq years, in his own way standing in that same Southern California parking lot lamenting a management team refusing to preach anything but patience, as prudent as that might be.

"I've coached a lot of great players," Riley says, "and they all have one common thread: They want to win and they want to win now. They don't want anybody wasting their time. He doesn't want to go through a year of his life and wait.

"So I understand that he wants it now, that he'd like to have enough now. But he also understands that this is a business, too, and he knows we're doing things the right way. But those are the things that he has to deal with as a player."