When you need meal time inspiration, it's worth shopping king supers, where you'll find over 30,000 mouth-watering choices that excite your inner foodie. And no matter what tasty choice you make, you'll enjoy our everyday low prices, plus extra ways to save, like digital coupons worth over $600 each week. You can also save up to $1 off per gallon at the pump with fuel points. More savings and more inspiring flavors make shopping king supers worth it every time. King supers, fresh for everyone, fuel restrictions apply. That's the sound of something falling three stories. Now imagine if that were you. Well, if you get in a crash, it could be hitting the windshield at just 30 miles per hour feels like the equivalent of falling three stories. Seafelt save lives. That's why you should always wear one. You reduce your risk of serious harm by 50%. Nobody is above the laws of physics. Click it or tick it. Shifting to save. A message from the Colorado Department of Transportation. Welcome to latest episode of Five on the Floor and the Five Reason Sports Network. Thanks for joining us on your favorite podcast app. If you're Apple, Apple Podcasts, if you're Android, recommend Spotify or the Five Reasons YouTube channel. Also, check out Off the Floor. That's our Discord server, $2.99 per month. You communicate with other heat fans and with a host of Five on the floor and others for the Five Reason Sports Network. Get off of Twitter. Again, the link is right here in the description on the podcast feed and on the YouTube channel. Again, $2.99 per month. Also, check out the great sponsors of the Five Reason Sports Network. It's NBA Finals. We know that some of you really don't want to watch this, but if you're going to watch it, make it more entertaining. Go to Price Pics. Use the code 5FIVE. Get that initial deposit matched up to $100. Again, that code entitles you to that money right away. And this is basically the same game that they had legal in the state of Florida before. They just tweaked it. Got it past the regulators. And look at that. They're playing Price Pics again. Use the code 5FIVE. Get that initial deposit matched up to $100. And now, today's episode. Welcome to Five on the Floor. A daily insider show. A daily insider show in the Miami Heat and the NBA featuring Ethan Skolnick, Greg Soulvander, and Alex Toledo, plus others from the Five Reason Sports Network. All right. Welcome back to Five on the Floor. Here's today's Floor Plan. I'm Ethan Skolnick. I'm Ethan Skolnick. I'm Ethan Skolnick. I'm Ethan Skolnick. I'm going to Five Reason Sports. And we've got our primary playback host, Eternal Bass. You can find him on the playback channel. Also, sometimes here on Five on the Floor. He's been part of the draft series that they're doing along with our guy Digital Edel as well as Matt Hanifin and others on the playback channel. Go to playback.tv/5RSN or just download the playback app. And you'll find it there if you just look for the Five Reason Sports Room. And again, that's where you can watch the games with us. But also, we do episodes between games and we do them on other sports as well. All right. So Eternal and I, the topic today is going to be Dwayne Wayne. Because, man, he's been retired now. How long is it? He's been retired. He's been retired since 2019. So, we're talking five years. I mean, it feels like legit yesterday, where he's passing a Haslam for the triple double. And, of course, Jimmy Butler's sitting next to him at the table. That's how long it's been, okay? Before Jimmy came, that's how long Dwayne has been retired. Obviously, he's moved on to other things. He's a podcaster. He's a trailblazer. You know, he's a philanthropist. He's an activist. A whole bunch of things that Dwayne's doing. He was briefly a game show host. I don't think that worked out as well. But he's, again, he's everywhere. And I think he still has poor ownership of the Utah Jazz. But his name is always in everybody's mouth. And I don't really understand it. So we're going to go through a couple of things here, right? In some terms, it's been in a good way, right? Like Brian Winhorse, who covered the NBA Finals, literally sitting right next to me for that entire time. So, I mean, I know Brian was paying attention. You know, Brian said recently that LeBron, who, again, Brian got his start covering LeBron at St. Vincent St. Mary. But then over time, he's covered LeBron less and less. He's talked about that. I knew about that even during the Big Three era, when he moved down to South Florida for a couple of years. And he's more of a national NBA guy now. And, you know, he doesn't always sort of, unlike some others, he doesn't always carry LeBron's water, even though people thought he did. And 2011, he talked about that finals. And of course, that's, I call it the now or never finals, because eternally I was in Dallas and at a water burger, about 3.30 in the morning. And LeBron had been struggling. He was famously asked a question by Greg Doyle, who's made some news lately about the question he asked of Caitlin Clark. He was asked a question about Greg Doyle about shrinking in the fourth quarter. And LeBron couldn't stop talking about it privately. At that time, I was pretty connected to the people around him. And it was like totally in his head, all right? And of course, that was the cough series and a whole bunch of other things like that. And, well, as I'm in a water burger at a drive-through, I won't say my condition, I was not driving. And, you know, everything in a water burger looks good at 3.30 in the morning in a certain condition, right? I mean, Dallas doesn't stay open that late. And so, as we're ordering, I'm checking through Twitter. And I see that he's tweeted now or never. And I remember turning to Joe Goodman and Shando Richardson and saying, "Yeah, they're losing." Because everything was in his head, right? And so I think what gets forgotten and Winhorse brought this up is that Dwayne was having a terrific series and likely would have won the MVP in that series if they had won. It would have been very hard even for the biggest LeBron stand to give it to LeBron, even if he, like, dominated the last two games of the series, because Dwayne was just better throughout that series. And Dwayne was -- that was kind of before the bone bruise, so it's before Dwayne started to decline. It was more so just finding role. So, in general, that was a positive one. But then there's been this other stuff, okay? Colin Coward comparing Jalen Brown to him, which on its face is not that offensive because I actually think Jalen's the best player on the Celtics. I know that's controversial. But he also -- he said that Jalen had, what, an unappealing offensive game like Dwayne? Did I miss Dwayne dunking on Vergil and Jermaine O'Neill? Did I miss the artistry early in his career? Did I miss -- and the athleticism? Did I miss what he evolved into later in his career with more of an old man game? Where, again, he still had moments. I mean, running up on the table and screaming, "This is my house." Is not entertaining offense. That -- and again, Colin's an idiot, generally. So I'm not totally surprised, but that one. And then there's been, again, there's been some robin stuff which I'll let you get into, which is -- some of that is fair. But then the continuous James Harden comparisons. And I just -- I feel like I'm compelled, like I get a signal, like a bat signal. Every time one of these is put out by someone where somebody -- I think it was Josh Everly this time who's been on our podcast, who basically had -- he put a list of players -- this is what I was looking for beforehand. He put a list of players that were better than Wade or arguably better than Wade, and he had Harden as arguably better than Wade. And I just do not understand how you can have somebody as arguably better than Wade when he's literally shot 25% or below in 25% of his playoff games. I just -- I don't understand that when you have a guy who gave the greatest finals performance of all time. And by the way, James Harden had one of the worst finals performances for an award winner as a sixth man in the 2012 series against the Heat. So let me ask you this, okay? Why in your view is there this ongoing need to throw Dwayne into these conversations when it's pretty clear like what he is. He's the third best two guard of all time. I don't think it's disputable. I think a lot of that is just gap separation, right, when you talk about time. And time is something that is both mysterious and very silly when it comes to the way people perceive things. You look back at the early parts of Dwayne Wade, and it's crazy even because -- what was that last August, last July with me, you and Greg or somebody else that did? This whole Wade and James Harden discussion, Wade versus Paul Pierce thing, like -- it's sad that we're back here again because Wade deserves so much more than that. But Wade won his third ring -- won his first ring in his third year as the guy. There's a case that you could probably make that he probably wins it the second year as the guy had it not been for the real injury. It doesn't make sense to me while we keep revisiting the situation. This conversation over and over again, especially when there are stats that you can pull. There are videos that you can pull. There are players that speak very highly of battling against Dwayne Wade, one of the greatest competitors in NBA in sports history. Kobe Bryant spoke about what it took to battle against Wade. It doesn't make sense to me, but you're going to have guys that just created greatness and legends as time goes on. We've seen it with other legends in the game. One thing we were talking about before the podcast is that obviously Dwayne has taken some very progressive political positions. I can kind of trace Dwayne's evolution with this stuff. I always say I covered Dwayne's first Summer League game in Orlando. I was there from beginning to end. At the beginning, Dwayne was just kind of a naive kid. I remember his first press conference and we don't need to get into the personal stuff that went on throughout the years, although that shaped him in some ways also. I remember that first press conference and all he was talking about was shoes, honestly. There wasn't a lot of depth there. Then over time, some of it, Shaq came in and Dwayne became sort of more media savvy. Sometimes I think to the detriment of reporters because they had this whole game where they would make stuff up and we would have to kind of guess if they were telling the truth or not. Then Shaq left and Dwayne then sort of had to come back from that injury, get up, fall down seven, get up eight. Then obviously the dream team too and all of that stuff or the redeem team, I'm sorry. Then it was basically one of the best players, if not the best player in the league, over a two-year period. Then the big three came in and he had to sacrifice, obviously, in a way that others had not. But not only did he have to sacrifice, but he had to police. I always come back to that first press conference that they had and there were too many people. They did it at the Heck Center at UM. They didn't do it. They did it down there to open it up to everybody. I remember Dwayne sitting between LeBron and Bosch. Chris, you could tell, was a little bit nervous. LeBron was nervous as hell and was tapping his fingers the entire time. Dwayne basically took the mic, like Dwayne took the mic and sort of controlled the ceremonies in that. A lot of ways did that over the course of the first three years of the big three. One of the reasons that I was always told that LeBron kind of stayed in line with a lot of things was because Dwayne did things a certain way. So LeBron, unlike what Jimmy does now, okay, Wayne's not here, LeBron would speak to the media all the time. LeBron would, they really didn't have a lot of those kind of issues behind the scenes with LeBron and it was mostly because Dwayne, then they had had Dwayne since the beginning. They kind of raised him right, so to speak, right, like the heat wave from the very start. Him and you D together and then you kind of see it with Bam now. He's kind of the natural successor to that. So I saw Dwayne evolve, but over time, I think what did happen though was LeBron got Dwayne more involved in causes. And, you know, we saw this, you know, obviously with a lot of the political issues that went down at the time. And, you know, Dwayne, whether it was writing names on shoes or other things that he did along those lines. He got involved in more of these issues. But then as he grew even more, you know, he got to the point where he has, you know, essentially been a beacon for certain causes. And you had said before the podcast, so we should address it here quickly, that you think that maybe that plays into this a little bit. Why is it because he is so public still, he keeps getting brought into all this stuff? Yeah, I think because Wade also, it's kind of a two-part thing. I think because Wade had personality like you did to carve. Where he didn't mind handing the keys as far as allowing LeBron to be the lead guy and things being shaped around LeBron. And, you know, that kind of taking off in year two of the big three. And also because of how public he had been when his relationship with Gabriel. You know, how supportive and outward he's been of his daughter. You know, Ethan, again, like we're not going to die super decent to it. But I mean, we do live in a society where it's four things you would think we would be. We're not. Right. And that does impact the ways that people perceive just even common sense things. Like one thing that shouldn't be debated on court is the way D Wade is one of the best players of all time and in the third best shooting guard of all time, like undisputed. But it keeps getting bringing, it keeps getting brought up year after year. And it seems like every three to five months at this point. Yeah, no doubt about it. And I do think that that again, he keeps his name in the news because he has stayed public. He's stayed public, obviously the whole fame ceremony, which was very touching. But a whole bunch of different things like Dwayne has not, you know, some guys just disappear in retirement. We'll never see quite Leonard again. You know, Dwayne is someone that you knew was going to be a public face. And so again, he gets thrown into these conversations, but he gets thrown into these debates that are honestly kind of ludicrous from a basketball perspective. So we'll go through them after the break here quickly and kind of, you know, talking about which are legit and which are not legit. All right. Do want to tell you about one response for the five reason sports network. Our friends over at autograph, make sure you download the app using the code five and you can find all of your mind and heat content or the favorite, your content from your other favorite teams in one place. I also putting up some exclusive videos just there. So check them out. Download the autograph app from the Apple App Store, the Google Play Store or autograph.io using the code five. It is totally free. And you can win lots of cool stuff. We gave away a band out of bio signed $500. That was the value. Jersey for 13 bucks about a week ago. So we're going to have something else in the space there. Hey, it's Ethan Skollner for five on the floor and the five reason sports network. As you know, we heard from Pat Riley recently. Everybody has an opinion on trades, free agency, who they should keep, who they should give up, who they should get. Well, whatever it is that Riley and the heat do, you don't want them giving up too much and getting too little, right? Well, the same is true of shaving products. And that's why I use Harry's shaving products. I love the way to handle. I love the way it looks. And I love the quality of the shave. I have a little bit of trouble growing out a good beard. So better to just shave it off and make sure that it looks somewhat professional. These are German engineered blades made in their own factory. So they stay sharp longer means you can use them longer. And also they've got customizable delivery options for scheduled refills as low as two bucks, half of what you pay for other big brands. Also, I would recommend the shaving lotion as well and the body wash. So check it out. You can go to harries.com/5. That's harries.com/5. You'll get a $13 trial set for just three bucks. Again, don't pay too much and get too little. Same is true of shaving as NBA transactions. Harries.com/5 for your $3 trial set. That's the sound of something falling three stories. Now imagine if that were you. Well, if you get in a crash, it could be hitting the windshield at just 30 miles per hour. It feels like the equivalent of falling three stories. Seafelt save lives. That's why you should always wear one. You reduce your risk of serious harm by 50%. Nobody is above the laws of physics. Click it or tick it. Shift into safe. A message from the Colorado Department of Transportation. Looking for a meaningful career? Then come to RTD and make connections. We're currently hiring operators starting at 25.96 an hour, body shop tax at 30.26 an hour, and mechanics at 32.72 an hour. All positions are eligible for a $4,000 signing bonus. RTD offers paid training, great benefits, and a chance to make a difference in your community. To apply, visit RTD-Denver.com/careers. That's RTD-Denver.com/careers. An equal opportunity employer. Alright, let me get to this. This was a positive one, Eternal. Would you say he's the second best Robin of all time? Because one of the reasons he's got thrown into this this time is because of Kyrie, right? So Kyrie was LeBron's Robin, and I guess now he's Lucas Robin. He better be a better Robin in game two than he was in game one. And he's being compared to Kyrie a lot. I know LeBron came out talking about he wishes he was still playing with Kyrie, kind of making about himself. I covered Kyrie's first season up there. I did a lot of comparison because I didn't think Kyrie measured up to Duane as a teammate in the way. But again, Duane was a more mature older player than Kyrie was at that time. Is it fair to say that Duane was a better Robin to LeBron? Let's just say than Kyrie has been, or was? I think it's ludicrous because I obviously is within a vacuum, it's very hard to say because, you know, LeBron and Wade only played four seasons together. That first season you can't necessarily say Wade was the Robin because they were kind of co-leading the ship in the finals. He outperformed him. It really, to be honest, Wade had a very, very strong playoff run that year outside of, you know, I guess you could point to the Chicago series, which Wade never really played with. Oh, much like Chicago. But that second season, even the finals, Wade has some very strong performances. I guess you could say, you know, he was, I don't know. They had him second on list to Scottie Pippen. Yeah. And if, at that no point was Scottie ever to lead man with Michael. Not with Michael. Yeah, the year that Michael left. And then of course there was, there was the famous timeout and the coach, the play run for coach, right? But Scottie was great that year. He was an MVP candidate. Right. So I think, I think the nuance of that conversation is just very difficult because to me, I would say, I guess it is Scottie because you won six in that role. We talk about the Miami Heatway, you, the superstar in your role. And I don't think anybody to play that role is, is great as Scottie did. But. Dwayne was a better leading man. Yeah. Well, well, well, well, well, well, we're talking about with LeBron, you know, right? But he was a better, but Dwayne was a better leading man. Three LeBron, Pippen never had a pre Jordan, right? Right. But Jordan never won without Pippen. And I think it's reasonable to say Pippen is the best Robin of all time in terms of understanding that role. Dwayne assumed that role. And again, we're cycling back here to the 2011 finals where he didn't, he assumed that the lead role kind of by accident because LeBron was so ineffective in that series. And Mike Bibby was the starting point guard and like somebody needed to do something. But I just, I would say it's Scottie because again. Yeah. There are others in history that we could look at. But to win six titles is the second guy to do all the dirty work stuff. And Scottie could have been a lead guy and he showed it in that year afterwards, where he could have been an MVP candidate. It's hard to make the art. But the Kyrie one, I'm not going to accept because I, I, the thing about to, I understand Kyrie made huge shots to win the championship. I get it and all of that. And some may want to make the argument that Kyrie was more skilled than Wade. I think it depends on what you're focusing on. It's certainly not more skilled defensively when Dwayne was engaged as an off the ball defender. I mean, Kyrie has never been a plus defender. He's been adequate at times when he's wanted to be. But to me, it's, it's Dwayne. And the other argument here before we close is this idea of others trying to throw people into the conversation as the second, as the third best two guard of all time when honestly, I think, and I know this is controversial, Dwayne is closer to Kobe as the number two than anybody is to Dwayne as the number three. Iverson was more of a point guard. I had this conversation with the Braun and Dwayne. They actually argued about it. I'm not going to put Iverson ahead of Wade in any context. And I'm not putting Jerry West ahead of Wade. And so the only other person we're talking about is Clyde Drexler or again, Hardin, who I'm not putting there. Is there anybody in today's game that you think someday? I mean, I heard people talking Bradley Beale early in his career. But before we close, is there, is there anybody in today's game that you think would approach Dwayne to take that number three spot? I'm just going to give you some numbers. And mind you, the 2000s for people that don't remember, these are the positions that were really the star of, like, I really, to be honest with you, Ethan. I guess you could probably say the 2000s had stars in every position, right? Like you had superstar point guards, you had superstar shooting guards, you had superstar of small fours, powerful fours, and sinners, right? Like they were just, they're scattered throughout the 2000s. Wade, and that's really to be debated. He never made first team on defense. Mm hmm. And there are some cases that you can make that he should have. Right. I think a couple of times, especially the 0809 season, he outplayed Kobe. Right. Well, Kobe made it, I think, by default, because of the offense sometimes. But Dwayne should have gotten that. And now we all know later in Dwayne's career, he stopped running back on defense. Oh, you're kidding. And he was cherry-bigot. Yeah. But he was great at that time. No, I'm with you on that. And unfortunately, we got to close here. But I'm just like... Well, before we close, I want to give you some. So Dwayne Wade from 0304 season to the 2010-2011 season, right? We can just say the 2010-2011 season was the end of the height of Wade being in his peak, right? Wade averaged 25.4.6.3 assists, 5.1 rebounds, and 547 games between 0304 to 2010-2011. Wade, also, as a shooting guard, finished top three voting in MVP and defensive player of the year. We can stop all this bullshit-ass conversation. We can just stop. And that's where we'll stop it. Check out our sponsors. autograph. Use the code 5. Price picks. Use the code 5. Go to playback.tv/5RSN. Follow a journal there. We'll be on for the NBA Finals and draft previews. We're not going to start putting other people ahead of Dwayne just because we've got nothing else to talk about. Have a good day, everybody. Thank you for listening to the five on the floor on the Fivers and Sports Network. After all, someone needs to listen to my dad. That's the sound of something falling three stories. Now imagine if that were you. Well, if you get in a crash, it could be. Hitting the windshield at just 30 miles per hour feels like the equivalent of falling three stories. Seafelt save lives. That's why you should always wear one. You reduce your risk of serious harm by 50%. Nobody is above the laws of physics. Click it or tick it. Shift into safe. A message from the Colorado Department of Transportation. Looking for a meaningful career? Then come to RTD and make connections. We're currently hiring operators starting at 25.96 an hour, body shop tax at 30.26 an hour, and mechanics at 32.72 an hour. All positions are eligible for a $4,000 signing bonus. RTD offers paid training, great benefits, and a chance to make a difference in your community. To apply, visit RTD-Denver.com/careers. That's RTD-Denver.com/careers. An equal opportunity employer. That's the sound of something falling three stories. Now imagine if that were you. Well, if you get in a crash, it could be. Hitting the windshield at just 30 miles per hour feels like the equivalent of falling three stories. See-felt save lives. That's why you should always wear one. You reduce your risk of serious harm by 50%. Nobody is above the laws of physics. Click it or tick it. Shift into safe. A message from the Colorado Department of Transportation. What's next? At Moss Adams, that question inspires us to help people and their businesses strategically define and claim their future. As one of America's leading accounting, consulting, and wealth management firms, our collaborative approach creates solutions for your unique business needs. We leverage industry-focused insights with the collective technical resources of our firm to elevate your performance. Uncover opportunity and move upward at MossAtoms.com.
