Dwyane Wade wants to retire with Miami Heat

YOU CAN ALWAYS GO HOME. Dwyane Wade may be heading to Cleveland, but he hopes the final stop of his NBA career is in Miami. File photo by AFP/Christian Petersen.

MANILA, Philippines - Two years ago, the thought of Dwyane Wade wearing a jersey other than the Miami Heat’s was hard to fathom. Much like Patrick Ewing wearing a Seattle Supersonics jersey or Hakeem Olajuwon repping the Toronto Raptors, it just doesn’t look right.

Yet after a highly publicized spat with Heat president Pat Riley in 2016, Wade took his talents home to Chicago. Following a first-round exit in the playoffs and a massive roster implosion, the 3-time NBA champion bought out the remainder of his contract and has accepted a one-year contract for the veteran's minimum of $2.3 million to reunite with his best friend LeBron James in the stacked Cleveland Cavaliers.

Despite Wade’s recent team-hopping, he isn’t ruling out a return to the place he called home for 13 seasons, as he revealed in an interview with the Associated Press.

“Miami’s door’s always unlocked. One day, I want to retire in a Miami Heat jersey. I don’t know how that will happen, but I definitely want to make sure that when I decide to hang it up, that jersey is on.”

“Whether it’s being back there or signing a one-day deal like Paul Pierce, I want to make sure that I go out the way I came in.”

Riley already had the same sentiment a week earlier, even before Wade signed with The Land: “I feel great about our relationship that we had over the 13 years,” Riley said in an interview with AP. “And anything that happens from a personnel standpoint down the road, or any opportunities that are there, we’re always going to approach that.”

“There will always be a key under the mat,” concluded Riley. – Rappler.com