Dwyane Wade is among the highest profile free agents remaining on the market in late July, but there’s very little buzz about the future Hall of Famer because he’s made it abundantly clear he’ll either re-sign in Miami or call it a career in the NBA.
Most expect him to come back for one more season with the Heat, especially given the lack of a formal send-off for one of the best shooting guards in NBA history, but it is possible that Wade hangs them up this summer. No matter what his decision, Wade won’t be disappearing from the public eye completely, as that would be nearly impossible given his stature as a star himself and his wife, Gabrielle Union, being a movie star in her own right.
Wade also has a new lifetime deal with Li-Ning, the Chinese sneaker company that he’s been with since 2012, which means he’ll at the least be promoting new sneakers in his Way of Wade line, and we know he has plenty of aspirations in the fashion industry. If his NBA career does come to an end this summer, some in the Chinese Basketball Association are hoping that won’t be the end of his competitive hoops career.
The Zhejiang Golden Bulls have reportedly put a three-year, $20 million deal (or $25 million, depending on the source) on the table for Wade in hopes of luring him overseas, per the South China Morning Post. That’s not quite the figure most had in mind when the initial reports of a “monster offer” would be coming for Wade out of China, but it is likely more than Wade will get in the NBA.
It seems highly unlikely Wade would accept that offer for a variety of reasons. The biggest of those being that he would have to be away from his family for a significant portion of the year to play in China, and with his son Zaire quickly rising through the high school ranks as a budding star prospect, it would be shocking for him to want to spend three years playing in China. He’s obviously a massive star in China and playing there would be good business for his sneaker line with Li-Ning, but it’s hard to imagine Wade choosing any deal, much less a multi-year one, to play overseas.
