The Wood Shop: Let’s Talk About Dwyane Wade For A Few Minutes

Dwyane Wade, through three games, isn’t having a very great season offensively. He’s shooting 28% from the floor and is averaging 2.7 turnovers a game. He’s only making 2.3 shots a game. That’s a bit concerning. I can’t think of any players that have ever been impactful notching more turnovers than made shots per game. If you can name one, I’ll be eternally grateful, and you can’t factor in great end of bench celebratory skills.

However, Wade will probably figure out the offensive stuff. His shot just looks off. What’s more concerning is his defense. During the Magic game, this became really apparent in the first quarter. Wade was part of three straight defensive breakdowns. Let’s check it out. If you read the recap of Saturday’s game against the Magic, you know it wasn’t pretty. This was the first lapse of the Wade-Centric Ones, which contributed to the Magic going on a huge run early.

In this play, Wade ends up on D.J. Augustin, a journeyman point guard at this point who is four inches shorter than him. Once D.J. gets the ball, Nikola Vucevic comes to set a screen, which D.J. denies. Typically, Wade would slide laterally to stop Augustin from driving. That just isn’t the case. Wade is able to slide just once before being forced to turn and chase Augustin. Fortunately, Augustin fears being blocked at the rim and tosses the ball to the corner. The shot doesn’t fall. Wade just looks a tad slow here.

In the next play, the Magic run a modified weave play without  handing off the ball directly. Wade starts off in the corner covering Evan Fournier. Fournier than starts moving to the top of the floor to get the ball as Terrence Ross moves Wade’s direction to rub him off of Fournier. Wade smartly tells Jae Crowder to switch and all is well for a moment.

Crowder chases Fournier and fights over a Vucci screen. For some reason Kevin Love decides to trap on the screening action. The result is Vucci rolling to the rim unchecked. Well, the trap causes Evan to have to look for a pass. The pass to the weak side, which Wade is manning, isn’t open. It’s a LeBron level heave. It’s also not a smart option because Vucci is closer by and a pass to him has less distance to travel.

Wade, however, doesn’t realize this or he doesn’t care to. He stands upright, always a no-no on defense, and decides not to bump Vucci off his rim roll once he sees the trap. Doing so would have caused Fournier to have to attempt a cross-court pass to Ross in the corner. Wade probably could have recoverd and prevented a free bucket if the ball was passed that far.

And, the third play to close out this journey of sadness involves Wade showing the ultimate, “I’m gonna tell you what to do,” attitude. This play isn’t entirely Wade’s fault, but, well, just watch.

Wade notices at the beginning of this action that Jonathan Isaac is crossing paths with Augustin. He smartly motions to the Kevin Love to pick up the bigger and presumably slower Isaac. However, Wade himself is standing completely upright at this time. And, Love is turned sort of sideways with his eyes on Augustin and back to Issacs. Shame on him in some ways, but shame on Wade for not letting Love feel confident he had Augustin under control. Wade’s rationale for standing upright then becomes that LeBron’s man, Ross, in the corner is starting to come up to the top of the floor and that LeBron should crash down to stop Augustin from diving while Love stops Isaac. Wade, of course, gets to stand in the same spot with this rationale. Luckily, the Magic don’t score.

Ultimately, this incident falls on Wade. Had Wade been in a defensive stance Augustin wouldn’t have had the gall to cut and put pressure on the King to drop down and help, or to put pressure on Love to stop two guys rolling to the hoop. Overall, Wade just isn’t showing the effort he needs to on the defensive end. It just waits to be seen if this is because he’s out of shape or just can’t do it anymore.

This is picking on Wade in some respects, but Wade does need to answer for these mistakes. He needs to at least put himself in the proper stance to move, so I can’t get on him as easily. A lot of these issues though are with Tyronn Lue‘s defensive system. He needs to cut all of the switching out  and go with a simple drop back and recover scheme on pick like actions. As the team shows they’re capable of this, Lue can slowly introduce some off-ball switches and eventually start introducing some hard traps.  This team is full of new guys and guys playing new positions. They’re just beginning to understand how they fit together. Why complicate that?