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Wade did something that a lot of stars would not have done to make this title happen.
He sacrificed, and sacrificed a lot. He left about $20 million in salary on the table in owner Micky Arison's office to make sure that James, Bosh, Udonis Haslem, Mike Miller and others could be squeezed under the cap two summers ago. He turned over the role of team go-to guy to James, the player that even Wade will acknowledge is better.
"Best player in the world," Wade said.
That's what Heat president Pat Riley used to call Wade. It's not a slight on Wade that someone better is here now. It's what Wade wanted in the first place. Odds are, Wade will never be the highest-paid player on his team. He's never been. But in the next few months, he'll get his second championship ring, and the way this team is built, it easily might not be his last.
"We made a decision two years ago to become a team," Wade said. "You know, LeBron, Chris and myself, and other guys decided to come together. So you've got to do what you've got to do to make sure that you reach your goal. And I had a position, I had a role to play. It might have changed a little bit, but at the end of the day we all had one common goal, and that was to become the champions."
On Thursday, that finally happened.
On the same court where Dallas celebrated in front of them a year ago, Wade and the Heat won it all. A banner will rise, confetti fell.
How fitting. Ups and downs, just like his life has seen over these last six years.
"I'm speechless," Wade said. "Winning the championship in 2006 was amazing. But I didn't go through nothing yet. Now six years after that, I've been through a lot in my personal life, and I've been through a lot in my professional life, and this means so much more."
[Associated Press;
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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