Dwyane Wade not chosen as All-Star reserve. A look at the one chance he still has to make All-Star Game
It looks like Dwyane Wade’s final NBA season won’t include an appearance in the NBA All-Star Game.
Wade was not among the seven players chosen as All-Star reserves from the Eastern Conference, which were announced Thursday night. Coaches selected Indiana’s Victor Oladipo, Toronto’s Kyle Lowry, Detroit’s Blake Griffin, Milwaukee’s Khris Middleton, Philadelphia’s Ben Simmons, Washington’s Bradley Beal and Orlando’s Nikola Vucevic as the reserves from the East.
While there was a push from the fans to send Wade to one final All-Star Game before he retires at the end of this season, he said last week that “if I’m choosing an All-Star, I’m not picking me.” He made it clear again Thursday afternoon, before the reserves were announced, that he wasn’t necessarily waiting with bated breath to learn if he was going to be named an All-Star.
“I don’t care. I don’t know how many times I got to say it, I don’t really care,” Wade said Thursday when asked about the possibility of earning the honor. “Whoever gets into the All-Star Game, congratulations to him. If it’s their first time, congratulations. I know how much it means. If it’s multiple times, congratulations you deserve it. It’s as simple as that.”
Wade is a 12-time All-Star and has been voted in as a starter 10 times over the first 15 seasons of his NBA career. He’s averaging 13.8 points on 42.7 percent shooting and 4.3 assists in 39 games this season.
Wade’s All-Star selection would have had more to do with celebrating the final season of a Hall of Fame career and less to do with statistics.
There is still an outside chance Wade can play in the All-Star Game, but it will have to be as a replacement for an injured player. And there is an injured East All-Star reserve who needs to be replaced, with Oladipo out for the season because of a ruptured quad tendon.
Brooklyn’s D’Angelo Russell and Philadelphia’s Jimmy Butler are two of the top candidates to replace Oladipo in the All-Star Game. NBA commissioner Adam Silver names the injury replacements.
Heat point guard Goran Dragic was selected for his first All-Star appearance last season as a replacement for Cavaliers forward Kevin Love, who was unavailable because of a broken left hand.
As of now, though, it looks like the Heat could end up without a player participating in an All-Star event this year for just the second time since 2000. The only other time during this span Miami was completely shut out of All-Star weekend was in 2017.
Heat forward Derrick Jones Jr. had a chance to be chosen for the Slam Dunk Contest. But after suffering a knee injury Sunday, that possibility was been eliminated.
There was the possibility of Heat center Bam Adebayo playing in the Rising Stars Game as a second-year-player, but he was not one of the players chosen.
Wade could take part in the Skills Challenge if he’s invited, as it’s a competition he’s participated in three times and won in 2006 and 2007. The participants for the Skills Challenge, Three-Point Contest and the Slam Dunk Contest will be announced Tuesday.
The 2019 All-Star Game will take place at Spectrum Center in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Feb. 17.
This story was originally published January 31, 2019 at 7:15 PM.
