Dwyane Wade left Miami last summer as he felt disrespected by the Heat president, Pat Riley. Wade was offended because Riley didn't negotiate with him directly, and that was the biggest reason why he decided to take his talents to Chicago and play for the Bulls. However, the situation was different and Riley wanted to do what's best for the team, and for Wade as well.
Pat Riley has done a great job with the Miami Heat for over two decades, but last few years weren't really good for him. He lost LeBron James in 2014, and then a few years later, he let Dwyane Wade, the best player in the franchise history, leave the team.
Despite all these big losses, Riley has kept the Heat competitive and their first season without Wade wasn't too bad as they were on the edge of making the playoffs. Recently, the Heat president revealed why he didn't fight for the shooting guard last summer, saying that he wanted to have a competitive team.
Pat Riley wanted Dwyane Wade to have a better team
While Wade was offended that Riley didn't want to do negotiations with him, Riley was told that Wade's agent wanted to deal directly with team owners. He agreed to it and didn't want to interfere, but now he wishes he had done something about it. As it turned out, the negotiations weren't successful and Wade left to play for him hometown, which is something that could have been prevented by Pat Riley.
"I know he feels I didn’t fight hard enough for him,” Riley said. “I was very, very sad when Dwyane said no. The one thing I wanted to do for him, and maybe this is what obscured my vision, but I wanted to get him another player so he could end his career competitive.” At the end of the day, all Pat Riley wanted is to keep the Miami Heat competitive and have Dwyane Wade finish his career with more success.
However, his plan didn't work out well, and he lost many key pieces of the team.
Wade would have preferred to stay in Miami
Dwyane Wade's first season in Chicago isn't going very well as the team has dealt with a lot of drama and chemistry issues. The Bulls' front office isn't great either, and they've made a few moves that weakened the team.
As Wade said earlier, he needed to go to Chicago to see what playing for another team feels like. However, there is no doubt that he prefers Miami and that he would have rather stayed there.
Miami Heat and the Chicago Bulls finished with the same record at the end of the season, yet the Bulls' record was considered a failure since everyone expected much more from the team. On the other side, no one expected Miami to be so close to making the playoffs, and they would have definitely been one of the best teams in the eastern conference if they had Wade on the roster.
Dwyane Wade has a player option on his contract for the next season, and there is a chance that he will become a free agent. Could he come back to the Miami Heat, or will he stay in Chicago until he retires?
