Give the Nuggets props for having the guts to ask future Hall of Famer Dwyane Wade to dance. But here’s the tough, fair question the Nuggets also need to pose: Is the 34-year-old Miami guard just messing with Denver?
Doing a slow dance with Wade is a good way to get your toes stepped on and your feelings hurt.
Wade, feeling unloved in Miami, thinks he’s worth $25 million per season and appears miffed the Heat has taken his loyalty for granted. His value to the Nuggets is obvious: Wade, who averaged 19 points per game in his 13th pro season, still has game. More important, if a three-time league champion signed as a free agent, Wade could begin erasing Denver’s stigma as a flyover NBA city.
The Nuggets, flush with cash under the salary cap, are willing and able to make him the highest-paid player in franchise history, with one caveat. As of Tuesday, the Nuggets have refused to offer Wade more than a two-year contract, according to a source familiar with the negotiations. The team’s reluctance to add a third year to the deal is understandable, considering there are more than 30,000 minutes of NBA wear and tear on Wade’s body.
If Wade really wanted to play in Colorado, he would have agreed to join the Nuggets by now.
I get it. There’s no reason for Wade to rush this decision. He has earned the right to take all the time required to decide the best way to write the final chapters of a brilliant NBA career.
But letap keep it real. The money flows fast and furiously during free agency. Before we can digest the lunacy of center Timofey Mozgov getting paid $16 million per year by the Los Angeles Lakers, we’re smacked upside the head with the realization that the going rate for Memphis point guard Mike Conley is now $30 million annually, in the same rare air previously only inhabited by basketball legends Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant.
In the NBA’s silly season, where itap all Monopoly money and dignity takes gets thrown in the trunk of the limousine, maybe there should be only one hard-and-fast rule of any self-respecting league team: Offer the sun and the moon to a free agent. But set a firm, friendly deadline to a player on any offer. When the clock expires, the deal’s off the table. If Kevin Durant could hear the sales pitch from six teams in the Hamptons and pick one within 72 hours after free agency began, then why should Wade be so wishy-washy if he genuinely appreciated the Nuggets’ interest in him?
In the pursuit of Wade, the Nuggets seem desperate, shamelessly willing to be there for him if there’s no avoiding a divorce with Miami.
If the Nuggets look desperate and act desperate, itap probably because they are desperate. Hey, thatap the reality of life for at least 25 NBA teams in 2016. Denver is a 300-1 longshot to win … not a championship, but the Western Conference, where Durant has joined forces with Stephen Curry and his merry band of jump-shooters at Golden State, which won 73 regular-season games last season and then strengthened its roster.
The Nuggets have only one hammer with Wade: money. The Nuggets have the salary cap space to meet his salary demands, while the cash-strapped Heat would have to unload at least one significant contract to show Wade respect in a game where contracts are just another way for players to keep score. Is it really wise for the Nuggets to let Wade slow play them until Miami can make the necessary roster adjustments and find the money to make him happy?
When Carmelo Anthony walked out of town, forcing a trade to the New York Knicks in 2011, he slammed the door so hard on Denver it fell off the NBA map. To become relevant again, maybe all the Nuggets need is for one superstar to say yes, even if in the case of Wade, itap a superstar whose best years are behind him.
Wade could bring box-office appeal for a team that finished last in NBA attendance. As a shooting guard, however, itap questionable if Wade would actually be a major upgrade over Gary Harris, depending how you drill down in the analytics. But as a respected figure in NBA circles, maybe Wade’s greatest value to the Nuggets could be as a pied piper to other free agents down the road.
Is what Wade can bring really worth $50 million over two years? And if Denver management truly believes Wade has the power to transform the franchise, then should the team raise the ante and offer him a three-year deal?
I know this: Wade is big, but he’s not so big the Nuggets should grovel.
Groveling is a good way to get played for a fool.
