Wade isn't sweating being left off of ESPN's player rankings
Ahead of last season, Dwyane Wade was sitting pretty at the No. 40 spot on ESPN's annual NBA player rankings, which was a respectable jump from the year prior when he was 46th.
Fast forward to present day, though, and Wade is nowhere to be found, being left off the list of the league's 100 best players altogether.
Related: Why DeRozan and Melo got squeezed, and the problem with rankings
With all he's accomplished during his career, such a snub isn't going to cause the current Chicago Bulls veteran to lose any sleep. In fact, Wade took to Twitter early Wednesday morning to remind everyone (and perhaps himself) that rankings shouldn't define a player, and that it's what you do on the hardwood that truly matters:
Rankings don't win you championships. Rankings don't get your jersey retired(one day) & They don't get you into the Hall of Fame(🤞🏾one day)
— DWade (@DwyaneWade) September 13, 2017
Part of the rationale behind excluding Wade was that he didn't have much of a positive impact on a Bulls team that won just 41 games last season, with career lows in field goal percentage (43.4 percent) and assists (3.8), combined with his lowest scoring average since his rookie campaign (18.3). His minutes also dipped below 30 for the first time (29.9), which was a contributing factor to the overall decline in production.