Gary Payton shares how he and the rest of Miami’s veterans helped Dwyane Wade reach superstardom

Dwyane Wade was a promising player in the mid-2000s, but he finally came into his own in his third year during the 2005/06 season. He embraced his role as a top star because he got support from his veterans.

The 2005/06 Miami Heat roster signed more experienced players to help D-Wade. He and Shaquille O’Neal were a formidable duo, but the former’s inexperience stood out to the front office, so they got Gary Payton , Antoine Walker, and James Posey to help him adapt to his role.

“He knew that he did not have a lot of young kids around him. He had a lot of people he can learn from,” Payton said to CBS Miami in 2019. “What we did was we put a lot of confidence in him. Once a lot of veterans like that put confidence in a young guy, a young kid can grow up and do the things he did, and he took off from there.”

Payton made Shaq step back to enable Wade

The 2005/06 season was the campaign where Shaq stepped away from being the number one guy. It was his 13th season in the league at 33 years old, so it was natural for him to play more of a secondary role. However, he was still as confident as ever, but GP helped convince him to step back.

The most prominent case is during the 2006 Finals when Wade was having the series of his life. Miami was down 0-2 against the Dallas Mavericks, but everyone in the Heat organization knew Wade was doing well. Payton spoke to Shaq to convince him to give D-Wade some space to operate.

“After the terrible second game, Gary came to the locker room. I don't know if he took a shower. ‘Hey man, you promised me, big dawg you get me a ring. You need to let D-Wade do his thing.’ We had that conversation, we turned the thing over to D-Wade and we all agreed this is the young fella show,” Shaq said on his podcast.

Wade grew into one of the best players in the league

The 2006 Finals was the coming out party for Dwyane because he carried the Heat to their first-ever title. He won Finals MVP by a landslide, averaging 34.7 points, 7.8 rebounds, 3.8 assists, and 2.7 steals per game.

The closest player to his stats was Walker, who scored 13.8 points per game. Shaq knew he had to step back, as he struggled for most of the series, but he still averaged a double-double of 13.7 points and 10.2 rebounds per game.

From that Finals win, D-Wade had the utmost confidence in himself to be a superstar player. He was the second-best shooting guard in the league behind Kobe Bryant and made the Heat a perennial Playoff team when he was healthy. Wade also won the scoring title in 2009, beating out Kobe and LeBron James for the crown.

D-Wade would then apply the lessons from GP and Shaq when LeBron joined the Heat. He took a step back for LeBron to shine, but he still found ways to be effective even if he had such a transcendent teammate in James.

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