In 2024, the Miami Heat unveiled a statue outside Kaseya Center dedicated to arguably the most iconic player in franchise history, Dwyane Wade. However, the statue was not incredibly well-received by folks upon its revealing, as plenty clowned it and said that it doesn’t even resemble the three-time NBA champion and legendary shooting guard.
Among some of the more memorable folks to criticize the aesthetics of the statue were former vice presidential candidate Tim Walz and The Ringer’s Bill Simmons. Simmons said that there’s “never been a worse sports statue,” while Walz called the bronze statue “pretty horrific.” Wade, however, has defended the statue.
Allegedly, late one night when Wade was checking out his statue without flocks of people around, a fan walked up to it and said, “They f—– my man up.” Wade then came out from behind the statue, talked to the fan and told him to take a closer look at the carved figure.
“Oh Man They Fucked my man up”
A Fan seeing the D Wade statue for the first time not realizing @DwyaneWade was there pic.twitter.com/Svgdz8dYgk
— Pardon My Take (@PardonMyTake) May 23, 2025
“I was actually there one night,” Wade said. “Here’s a story about it. I was there one night when I was in Miami, late night to go see the statue for myself, away from everyone, just me and my crew. And it’s this — it was like three in the morning — and it was a guy who walked up to see the statue. Now mind you, I’m behind the statue. I’m looking at all the details.
“He’s not even at the statue yet. He’s walking up, and he’s like, ‘Aw, man. They f—— my man up.’ So, I come around the statue. I said, ‘Bro, did you even look at the statue, or are you going off of everything you heard? Come here, let’s take a look at this statue for a minute.’
“But he just automatically walked up with his own, ‘Aw, man.’ Yeah, I’m like, ‘Hey, come get a better — you know what, matter of fact, how about you look from up top, right? Everybody looking from down here, right?’ But no, he took a couple steps back and was like, ‘Oh, man — I didn’t.’ No, you did. You said it. I heard you. … But it’s all good. If I lived in Miami, I’d just pop up at the statue anytime.”
While there are no shortage of critics of Wade’s statue, he appears to love it and doesn’t seem to be bothered that the statue doesn’t look exactly like him. Wade said last year that if he wanted the statue to look like him, he would “just stand outside the arena” so people could take photos of him.
Wade also reportedly had a lot of influence on how the eight-foot bronze statue was constructed. According to a report from former ESPN journalist Rachel Nichols a while back, Wade visited the statue maker on four separate occasions to provide his input.
The Heat honored Wade with his very own statue after he put together an iconic career with the organization. He played for every one of the three Heat title teams in franchise history to this point, and those titles came in 2006, 2012 and 2013.
On top of that, he earned every one of his 13 All-Star nods during his NBA career while playing for the Heat. He spent an overwhelming majority of his time in the NBA playing for Miami, as he never spent more than one full season with any other squad.