Cavs are grateful for what Dwyane Wade brought them in short time

The Cleveland Cavaliers and Dwyane Wade did not have a long time together, but it’s clear that Cleveland was grateful for Wade’s contributions in his short stint.

In a season full of losses to this point, there hasn’t been many positives for the Cleveland Cavaliers and their fan base. With last night being Miami Heat legend Dwyane Wade‘s last game in Cleveland, though, it was a reminder that the Cavs didn’t take what Wade did for Cleveland in his short stint for granted. Even with it only being for 46 games, Wade was very productive for the Cavs, and in his last NBA season, his bench production has again provided his respective club (the Heat) a huge lift.

With the Cleveland Cavaliers last year, Wade averaged 11.2 points on 51.9 percent true shooting, to go with 3.9 rebounds and 3.5 assists per game, per Basketball Reference.

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Him reportedly requesting to come off the bench after only three starts for the Cavs to begin 2017-18 was an immense lift for Cleveland’s bench unit, and that allowed the Cavs to often have big runs with Wade’s playmaking helping players such as Kyle Korver and Jeff Green.

His team defense was good, too, as evidenced by his 1.4 steals and 1.1 blocks per 36 minutes in that 46-game sample, per Basketball Reference.

Overall, the unselfish play of “Flash” in his Cleveland tenure seemed to be really appreciated by the Cavs organization, and his ex-teammates, such as Channing Frye and Tristan Thompson.

A video put together by the Cavaliers and reporter Cayleigh Griffin yesterday ahead of Wade’s last contest in Cleveland featured players and coaches expressing their gratitude for Wade and how he’s impacted the game of basketball in a positive way throughout his Hall of Fame career.

When watching something like this, it does not seem as though the Cavs traded Wade back to Miami at last year’s trade deadline for a future second-round pick because he wasn’t bought in or wasn’t an effective player. The Cavs also aired a quick pre-game video tribute that the Heat (and presumably Wade) really appreciated.

An in-game tribute was nice, too.

Based on the gratitude expressed by the Cleveland Cavaliers yesterday with the above videos, it seems like Cleveland is very happy for the contributions Wade gave them in the box score and from a leadership standpoint in his short stint.

It was cool to see Wade swap jerseys with rookie Collin Sexton after the game, too.

Sexton seems to have caught the eye of Wade and the Heat legend has reportedly helped Sexton a bit (per Cleveland.com’s Chris Fedor), and for one of Sexton’s role models to give him a bit of basketball guidance like that, it goes a long way for a rookie who’s had his ups and downs, as our own Eli Mooneyham emphasized.

Overall, it was a classy set of moves by the Cavs, and that was refreshing, given the trade of Wade last year.