Dwayne Wade Is Changing the Game, On and Off the Court
Maxim|May 2016

After 13 years with the Heat - and three NBA championships - Dwyane Wade is the King of South Beach. But now the basketball legend is working on a whole new set of moves.

Thomas Golianopoulos
Dwayne Wade Is Changing the Game, On and Off the Court

Dwyane Wade has a routine on road trips. When he climbs aboard the Miami Heat’s charter plane, his inflight entertainment consists of watching game film. “I want to get into it immediately, so I can see what we did right and what we did wrong,” Wade says. “I’m always looking to see how I can improve.”

That approach is part of the reason why Wade, now a 13-year veteran, has accumulated a Hall of Fame résumé: three NBA championships (2006, 2012, 2013), the 2006 finals MVP, the 2009 league scoring title and 12 All-Star Game selections. It’s also why the shy, awkward shooting guard from Chicago’s South Side is now a global luxury brand, with a movie star wife (Gabrielle Union) and footprints in the world of business, fashion and philanthropy. In 2011, President Obama even appointed Wade to the Fatherhood & Mentoring Initiative, a White House task force that aims to build healthier communities through role models. (On the president, Wade quotes the late sportscaster Stuart Scott: “Cool as the other side of the pillow.”) The following year, Wade became a New York Times best-selling author with the release of his first book, A Father First: How My Life Became Bigger Than Basketball.

As a boy in Chicago, Wade could hardly have imagined he’d make it to the White House. “Where I come from, growing up in the inner city without having a lot, you are unsure of yourself for many different reasons,” he says. “When you’re a kid and you don’t have material things—like living in a house with the lights cut off and no water—that affects you. That affects how you think people are looking at you. Maybe they’re not, but it affects you mentally.”

This story is from the May 2016 edition of Maxim.

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This story is from the May 2016 edition of Maxim.

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