Dwyane Wade Fueled By Critics Saying He is in Decline

Dwyane Wade says that he will no longer address questions about his age, health or alleged slippages in his game. However, Wade will use the criticisms as motivation going forward. From the Sun-Sentinel: “Any time someone questions you, it’s going to bother you if you have any kind of competitive nature,’ Wade said. ‘It fuels you. You want to see what you’re made of in a sense. You want to come back and not only answer the bell, but do a little bit more than expected.’ […] ‘He was not healthy last year,’ said Erik Spoelstra, who used ‘a young 30’ to describe Wade. ‘The most important thing for any player in this league is your health. What’s sad is [Wade being old] was the story line instead of being the ultimate competitor. That is the amazing story. He helped lead us to a championship. The story about him being old is exaggerated and absurd to us.’ […] Wade calls the talk, ‘just speculation, man.’ … ‘I’m not really worried about it, I’m going forward,’ Wade said. ‘If anyone asks me anything about that, I’m not answering. I don’t want to talk about it. We can talk about all that when I get done playing basketball. Right now, I’m one of the best players in the league, and I come in every year and try to work as hard as I can to try to stay there.’ … ‘At the end of the day, everyone looks at points,’ Wade said. ‘That’s what they look at. No one said anything about how my defense has been as good as it’s been. No one said anything about how efficient I was last year. I shot 49.7 percent from the field, so that means I hit half the shots I took. People don’t look at that. I can’t worry myself with that. The only thing I can do is, whatever role I have to play, is play it.'”