MIAMI, FLORIDA - FEBRUARY 03: Dwyane Wade carries the Larry O'Brien trophy during a ceremony to mark the 20th anniversary of the Miami Heat's 2006 NBA Finals title at halftime of a game between the Heat and the Atlanta Hawks at Kaseya Center on February 03, 2026 in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Megan Briggs/Getty Images)
MIAMI, FLORIDA - FEBRUARY 03: Dwyane Wade carries the Larry O'Brien trophy during a ceremony to mark the 20th anniversary of the Miami Heat's 2006 NBA Finals title at halftime of a game between the Heat and the Atlanta Hawks at Kaseya Center on February 03, 2026 in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Megan Briggs/Getty Images)
The Miami Heat legend Dwyane Wade recently recorded an episode of his podcast ‘The Check-In on the Wy Network’ where he was answering questions from fans.
Dwyane Wade is arguably a top-three shooting guard of all time. When a fan asked him how he performed at such a high level without a meniscus, Wade recalled how he didn’t realize the gravity of the news he got at age 19 about his knee (he had to surgically remove his meniscus).
“I have no idea. When I was 19 years old, and I was at the hospital, and the doctor told me that they had to take my meniscus out and that later in life I would experience arthritis and all this stuff.”
“You think I understood what that meant? Man, get me back on the court. I got to get to this money for my family. I don’t even know what a meniscus is. It’s a different day, different time. All I know is I hurt my knee. They’re saying this word called meniscus. They gave me some information, and I was like, ‘So, I got to get it taken out.'”
“Okay, that technology was different, all the things. So, I don’t know how I had the career I had because I know that when I came in, Doc told me this later in my basketball journey; he said, ‘We only gave you five years,'” Wade recalled.
“When you go through the draft process, you do all these tests, and they do all these evaluations and all these exams and x-rays and and Doc said he told the team, the Heat, ‘he will have five good years. And then after that the knee is gonna become an issue.'”
“And so he wasn’t lying, I had about five good years, and then my knee became an issue. I’ve had multiple knee surgeries after that because other things need to be cleaned up and so forth and so on.”
“So I will say is I have an incredible tolerance for pain. I have a high threshold for pain. I can play through I played through things that I know a lot of guys wouldn’t play through. Played through a lot of discomfort in my career. And I figured out how to still be effective with knowing I couldn’t do certain things.”
“That’s why I always talk about ‘you don’t see the brain,’ like I probably wasn’t a genius in school, but when it came to the game of basketball in my mind and all the things, like I had a version of that, right? And so, I learned how to still be successful knowing that I didn’t have the meniscus.”
“But my first for my first couple years, I didn’t even know that was going to be an issue because I was still just really explosive, right? And so, I was just like, what meniscus? What? I don’t even know what y’all talking about. Like I felt like Rookie of the Year,” Wade added.
“I started jumping higher. Like I wasn’t jumping. I didn’t feel like I was jumping that high before I had my knee surgery. Now maybe this is what I told myself. But ultimately, I just had to do a lot of things, dog, behind the scenes. I had to do a lot of masking. I had to do a lot of pill taking. I had to do a lot of strengthening.”
“We did a lot to keep this, and a lot of it. And shout out to Tim Grover. Shout out to Dave Alexander. Shout out to all my trainers. We try to keep this VMO strong. We try to keep these quads strong. We try to keep these hamstrings strong. We try to keep all these things strong so I could take pressure off this knee.”
“And so I have very strong legs as a player, like big thighs and all those things. And that was like intentional because I came into the NBA with no meniscus on my left knee. And so I knew they knew that it was going to be trouble down the line for me. So each surgery I got, I was told that I would have another one. I knew I was going to have another one.”
“And so it was on me to try to keep it off as long as possible. So that’s why I said I’m not lying when I said it was a point before, like a couple years before I retired, where I was like, I want out. I was in so much pain because it was not just my left knee; it was my right too cuz I was compensating.”
“So then it was a point where every time I drove up over the court it was just pain in both knees, and I was like, but why though? And so, man, God did. And just having like a just no quit, just having a will, just having a toughness, just having that tenacity, just being ferocious- like, you had to, you got to tap into all these things.”
“And you always have that question back in your mind. What if I was 100%. You know, I always had that question back in my mind because I did what I did,” Wade concluded.
Born on January 17, 1982, Wade was 24 years old at the time of his first championship with the Heat in 2006. In the 2006 NBA Finals, he averaged 34.7 points, 7.8 rebounds, and 3.8 assists while shooting 46.8% from the field to secure the Finals MVP alongside his first ring.
Wade’s prime was arguably from 2005 to 2011. In the 486 games he played during this period, he averaged 26.6 points, 6.6 assists, and 5.2 rebounds while shooting 48.6% from the floor. He then shifted to a primary playmaker role and left the scoring to LeBron James.
Dwyane Wade Shuts Down Critics For Disrespecting Him
Having retired with three NBA championships, Wade is regarded as one of the greatest shooting guards of all time. But he is often snubbed in the debate for other players like James Harden and Allen Iverson, who haven’t accomplished as much as he has in his career.
Wade decided to address the critics who leave him out of this debate on the episode as well.
“My career in this generation of conversations has been one of the most talked about careers… I’ve been compared more than anybody… I see you talking about me, so please don’t be surprised when I pop my s–t back.”
“What I really care about is the ones I played against; they know, you know who you had to go sleep a little early the night before… y’all like to remember D-Wade with the LeBron era — it was one before that, and that’s the one y’all don’t wanna talk about.”
“My career is great… I did everything… I didn’t get the MVP award because they didn’t give it to me. Not because I wasn’t MVP. You feel me? Like I did everything. I just didn’t get everything.”
Wade was selected to play in 13 All-Star games. He won a Finals MVP award and three NBA championships. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2023.
Going from a player who could have quit basketball within five years of his NBA career to now being regarded as one of the greatest of all time, Wade’s journey has certainly been an inspiration to many.