A new statue honoring Dwyane Wade “This is my house” celebration was unveiled at the Miami Heat’s Kaseya Center, but some people don’t think the statue looks anything like the basketball star.
Wade played 16 seasons with the NBA and was a 13-time All-Star before he retired in 2019, CNN reported.
The tribute to the three-time champion memorializes the double-overtime win the Heat had over the Chicago Bulls in 2009.
When the statue was unveiled, even Wade said “That’s crazy. I can’t believe that. Who is that guy,” CNN reported.
Fans posted on social media who they think it was.
One said it looked like Laurence Fishburne as the character Morpheus from “The Matrix.”
The Ringer’s Bill Simmons said it looked like the Jim Carey character Fire Marshall Bill from “In Living Color,” Sports Illustrated reported.
“I actually thought looked like somebody who had emerged from a fire and lived,” Simmons said according to SI. “What that Jim Carey fireman sketch. Can you imagine having a statue look that bad of yourself? Being unveiled would you even say? Thanks? There’s never been a worst statue and it got rightfully killed.”
Another person on X said that the statue looks “like that one Mortal Kombat level.”
Finally, ESPN’s Jeff Darlington suggested “The Miami Heat should’ve had a contest where they showed this picture to 1,000 fans — and anyone who guesses it’s Dwyane Wade gets to keep the statue.”
Still, as good or bad as the statue appears to some, Wade said that the pose itself was his idea.
“Yeah, it was my idea. I feel that if you’re getting a moment like this, it has to be a moment that when someone thinks of you, it had to be a moment that represents that,” he told the “Today” show.
The statue, for all its plusses and minuses, still is an honor in the end.
Wade said, “Hall of Fame: OK, it’s a couple hundred that’s made the Hall of Fame. But when you get here, you get the statue talk, that number gets really, really low. And I don’t even know if I have the right emotions for it.”