Wade waves goodbye to Brooklyn - and basketball - as a beloved figure

NEW YORK - They stood in the bowels of Barclays Center in Brooklyn on Wednesday night, three famous friends honoring a fourth with their mere presence.

The bond among Dwyane Wade and those three friends - LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, and Chris Paul - remains a piece of NBA lore. All they needed on Wednesday was the banana boat.

Seconds before Wade’s final pregame introduction, the other three icons trudged to their seats, careful not to take away any of Wade’s luster.

This was his night. In a season full of them, this was another of his nights. The last of them.

After a video tribute and a warm reception from the Brooklyn crowd, Wade smiled and lifted his arms.

A man seated near the floor in a No. 3 Heat jersey held up his phone and roared.

"I can’t believe this is it!" he cried.

This was the end of an era.

Any doubts about Wade’s stature as a generational player were settled after his third NBA championship, maybe before.

Any questions about Wade’s status as a generational person were answered in a viral commercial that Budweiser released Tuesday for Wade’s last home game. It was a ceremony that will long be remembered not just by Wade, the Heat, and the club's fans, but by the basketball community the world over.

The commercial brought Wade together with several of the fans to whom Wade became so much more than a Hall of Fame guard. It told the story of a superstar who realized long ago that the game provided a platform like no other, something Wade took to heart.

"This wasn’t business to him," Miami forward James Johnson said. "He feels like he has a responsibility and it shows. I just know that if you didn’t tear up during that commercial, you’re un-human."

That ethos won’t be forgotten in this locker room. More than any fadeaway, dazzling dunk, or dizzying pass, the legacy he leaves behind is one of service. In the modern NBA, where the game’s best players aren’t so much famous athletes as they are mythical figures, that is rare. Who can name one Dwyane Wade scandal? Finding an NBA player ready to disparage Wade is like searching for a penny in the Atlantic.

"He’s almost a model for how to act," Miami’s Josh Richardson said. "Guys like him, LeBron, CP3 - guys who are in the spotlight every year - you never really hear anything negative about them. They never have slip-ups. You really have to appreciate guys like that. Everything there was to take from him, we tried to learn. I couldn’t have asked for a better example than Dwyane Wade."

"What do they call it in 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire'? A lifeline? He’s been that for all of us," Johnson added. "Any question, any frustration, he always had the right words for us, and it’s easy to trust, because you know he’s been through it at some point in his career. The ups and downs of his career, he handled gracefully. What else do you expect from him?"

That just about sums it up.

Wade met for a four-hour lunch in September with the man whom he helped lead an NBA championship run, the man who gleefully welcomed him back into the fold this season for a swan song.

Erik Spoelstra was just 33 years old when they first met in 2003. He was an assistant coach for the Heat then, getting a front-row seat for Wade’s heroics, and for his growth. Wade matured under Spoelstra’s watch, became a champion for a second - and a third - time with Spoelstra pacing the sidelines. The Miami coach is no longer that wide-eyed neophyte, one of the league’s youngest when he took the reins in 2008 after more than a decade as a Heat assistant. His hair is thinning on top. The crow’s feet around his eyes have crow’s feet. Wade is now a year younger than Spoelstra was when he got the head gig.

Spoelstra retold a story on Wednesday night that he’s probably told a thousand times: When he was named head coach, the first phone call he got was from Wade.

"Only a great player, as young as he was, can have that kind of impact," he said. "We’d already formed a good relationship, but my confidence went through the roof that summer because he had belief in me. He’s been everything for our franchise. He’s more than the face of our franchise. He’s really the face of sports in Florida."

When they met in September, after Wade re-upped for one final go after being traded back to the Heat from Cleveland last February, Spoelstra was ready to accommodate the legend’s desires. Once again, Wade surprised his coach, volunteering to come off the bench and give Miami’s young wings - players like Richardson and Justise Winslow - a chance to spread theirs.

"The (number of) times he’s reinvented himself, that he’s sacrificed, that he’s allowed other people to emerge and grow and enjoy and celebrate, just makes him incredibly unique," Spoelstra said.

"There haven’t been many successful guys who’ve done a retirement tour and been able to manage everything, to strike a balance where it’s not always about you," he added. "Dwyane did that brilliantly. He could write a book about that."

Wednesday night was the final chapter. The pen is down.

If Tuesday night was the grand finale, Wednesday was the eagerly anticipated encore. Tuesday was the new stuff and a few of the hits. Wednesday in Brooklyn was just the final few classics.

And what a night it was. It started with LeBron and Co. waltzing in to celebrate their friend.

Late in the third quarter, all eyes were on the famed triumvirate once more, cameras catching them celebrating the most improbable of adieus as Wade completed what was just the fifth triple-double of his career.

Before the game, Spoelstra was non-committal about Wade’s playing time. The guard had appeared to injure himself while attempting to leap onto the Heat scorer’s table for one last time Tuesday.

"Under normal circumstances, this would 1,000 percent be 'load management,'" Spoelstra said. "He left it all out there - including the postgame celebration. It was an incredible night, it was beautiful. Everything probably played out as well as you could possibly imagine it, or not even dream of it. That simply just doesn’t happen for most pro athletes."

Wednesday was yet another night of magic. With just over three minutes left in the first half, Wade grabbed a long rebound and took the ball up the court before draining a mid-range jumper. The crowd erupted. Two plays later, he set up an alley-oop to Duncan Robinson, and two plays after that, a scoop pass to Udonis Haslem for a layup.

All told: 36 minutes, 25 points, 11 rebounds, 10 assists.

Walking to the interview room almost an hour after the final score read 113-94 in favor of the Nets, Wade looked down at a Miami media relations deputy and smiled, "Best loss I ever had."

Minutes earlier, with the game over, Wade, Anthony, Paul, and James stood together on the floor. Wade hugged each of them, one by one. They posed for pictures. Nearly two decades after they first met as boys on the AAU circuit, they met as men on the Barclays Center floor. Wade gave Anthony his jersey, then lingered on the floor for what felt like an eon. He made one final lap around the Barclays court as fans chanted "MVP" and "One more year." He signed a few dozen autographs, and that was it. One man whose jersey Wade signed was shaking as Wade walked through the tunnel. "This is my life!" the fan yelled, trembling.

This was Wade's too.

But like a ghost, he disappeared into the tunnel. Wade was gone, his career in the rearview mirror.

As goodbyes go, this was perfect.