Dwyane Wade statue outside Heat’s arena finally looks like Dwyane Wade, two years after its unveiling
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- A redesigned head has given Dwyane Wade’s statue outside Miami’s Kaseya Center a new look, two years after the original likeness drew widespread jokes and criticism.
- Wade and the sculptors said they listened to public reaction and agreed to refine the portrait.
Dwyane Wade is looking much more like himself these days.
That is, the statue of Wade outside of Kaseya Center in Miami now looks much more like the retired Heat legend than it did when it was unveiled two years ago. The sculpture’s new look, featuring a redesigned head by original sculptors Omri Amrany and Oscar Léon, was unveiled Friday.
The statue was meant to capture the iconic moment in 2009 when Wade jumped on a scorers’ table and declared, “This is my house!” Much of the public reaction, however, centered around how the piece looked less like the three-time NBA champion and more like Laurence Fishburne, Kelsey Grammer, Ken Norton Jr. and others.
Many took to social media to ridicule the new Dwyane Wade statue. The Heat legend thinks it’s ‘beautiful.’ The artist says critics may not remember what Wade looked like in action.
“I heard the jokes. I saw the memes. I read the reactions. Everybody had an opinion about whether it actually looked like me,” Wade wrote in an essay published Friday on Substack. “At first, it was hard not to feel protective of it because I had spent so much time involved in the process. ... But eventually, I had to take a step back and understand that the statue doesn’t belong only to me. It also belongs to Miami.”
He added: “I had to ask myself a pretty simple question: If people don’t feel that connection when they look at the face, why wouldn’t we try to make it better? So we listened and had honest conversations with everyone involved, and we all agreed to make adjustments to the head.”
When the statue was originally unveiled in October 2024, Wade had nothing but great things to say about it. He said it was his idea to immortalize that pose and that he had a lot of input on how the final product would look.
“I was just like, ‘Dude, that’s beautiful,’” Wade told reporters after the original unveiling. “Personally biased, I think it’s one of the best statues that’s been created because of what it represents for us and for me.”
Amrany also defended the statue at the time.
“We emphasized a two-second moment of his life when he jumped on the table and was in screaming mode,” Amrany told The Times in October 2024. “And that’s what it is, that’s what happens to the face when people are doing this activity, this facial activity.
Sparks Hall of Famer Lisa Leslie said she hopes her statue unveiled Sunday inspires young girls pursue their basketball dreams.
“We are very dedicated to a very high detailed quality to deliver exactly what the exact photo is giving us. For somebody to say that this does not look like Dwyane Wade in action, they don’t know Dwayne Wade in action. Or they don’t remember that. And it’s OK for them to say whatever they want.”
Both artists explained the decision to revisit the project in a statement released to media outlets this week.
“After seeing the work at full scale and in its permanent environment, we identified opportunities to strengthen the portrait,” Amrany and Léon said. “We decided that the importance of Dwyane warranted making those refinements rather than accepting something we believed could be improved.”
David Beckham is the latest soccer player to have his image immortalized, after the Galaxy recently unveiled a statue of their former player in front of Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson.
According to Wade, “this isn’t about erasing the work that was already done or disrespecting the artists who put their time and talent into creating it. It’s about being willing to listen. It’s about recognizing when something carries meaning for more people than just yourself and being open enough to revisit it.”
He added: “I hope when people see it now, they see a better likeness of me. But more than that, I hope they see themselves. Because it may be my likeness, but it will always be our house.”
Based on the comments on an X post by the Heat showing off the changes, Heat fans seem to approve. As one person wrote, it’s the “first statue to have a redemption arc.”
