We’ve said it before and I imagine we will say it many more times: If the Miami Heat are going to three-peat they are going to need to a healthy and improved Dwyane Wade this season and in the playoffs. They are going to need some other things as well, but Wade is a huge key.
He knows it. And he’s taking steps to get there.
We told you he was getting back into workouts now that he has an shock therapy on the tendonitis in his knees, now we learn that those workouts are with his former Chicago trainer Tim Grover. You know, Michael Jordan’s trainer. This from Brian Windhorst at ESPN’s Heat Index.
Wade has vowed that he will return a different player than he was at the end of last season, when he was limited by bone bruises and tendinitis in his knees. The 31-year-old guard averaged 21.2 points per game during the regular season, but just 15.9 PPG in the playoffs.
“I don’t train my clients to be good as new, I want them to be better than ever,” Grover said about working with Wade again. “That’s the goal for Dwyane.”
Wade likely will drop a few pounds and be in improved shape for this season, but will that be enough? Has he learned to adapt his game to an aging body that can’t just be explosive?
He told the Sun-Sentinel people will doubt him but he is used to that.
“I’m not done yet,” Wade said. “I still got more in the tank. Like I said, my focus is just to make sure physically I can do the things I need to do. My skills haven’t diminished by no stretch of the imagination….
“You lose something as you get older, when it comes to your athleticism,” he said, “but you don’t lose your game, you don’t lose what’s up here [pointing to his head]. My job, my whole life, I’ve always had that kind of doubter, people have always doubted me. And I don’t know how I would succeed without it. So I welcome it, and it gives me a challenge and I will see if I can live up to my challenge.”
Wade’s spirit is willing, we will see about the flesh.
