Dwyane Wade signing with the Cavs came as little surprise, as it was expected for much of the summer whenever the veteran guard reached a buyout with the Bulls he would join his old buddy LeBron James in Cleveland. With his buyout completed on Sunday night, Wade’s path to Cleveland was cleared and he chose to stay in the Great Lakes region rather than a homecoming in Miami or bolt for the Western Conference with the Spurs or Thunder.
So many have pointed to James and Wade’s friendship as a reason for their reunion, and it’s for sure a major factor. James went as far to say getting Wade on the Cavs made it feel like the first day of school and walking into class to find your best friend was also in there with you.
While there are certainly off court reasons for Wade to want to join LeBron, there are just as many on the court. The Cavs, despite the Kyrie Irving trade and Isaiah Thomas injury, are still one of the favorites to reach the NBA Finals out of the East. That’s a big selling point, but just as big is the hope that playing alongside LeBron can help rejuvenate Wade’s career a bit as he enters a contract year.
Nearly every player that hits the court with LeBron James is made better by playing with him, thanks to the attention he commands from defenses and his insane passing ability. It is no different for Dwyane Wade, who had some of his most efficient seasons of his career in Miami alongside James.
Wade certainly ceded some of his raw productivity as a necessary sacrifice to make the Big 3 work and allow James to be the top dog, as evidenced by his scoring dropping from an average of 27.2 ppg in the five years prior to LeBron to 21.9 in the four seasons with James. However, he also had four of his five most efficient shooting seasons (based on eFG%) of his career in the four seasons James was in Miami.
ESPN’s Chris Herring dove deeper into what made Wade work so well with LeBron for FiveThirtyEight and found that Wade was far more active off the ball in his seasons with LeBron. As Herring notes, the percentage of Wade’s offense that came from cuts to the basket more than doubled in his time with LeBron, as compared to the years he’s played without James (via Synergy).
As Herring notes, in the four years Wade played with LeBron the percentage of his offense via cuts was 6.5, 8.6, 11.4, and 9.4. In no season before or since has that percentage been higher than 5. Not only was Wade more active off of the ball, but he became a far better spot-up shooter in the corners after James signed in Miami.
Per Herring, Wade has shot 38 percent on corner threes in the seven seasons since James arrived in Miami, a significant upgrade over his 27 percent clip in the years prior to LeBron’s arrival. Wade had always been a ball dominant player, but playing with James forced him to learn to work more off the ball. In Cleveland, he will get plenty of chances on the ball until Isaiah Thomas returns, but if he can hit the corner three — something the Cavs took far more of last year than any other team — then he might fit into this offense better than originally anticipated, based off his relatively poor perimeter shooting from above the break.
