Old School

What time machine did this guy step out of?

Here’s what Miami’s Dwyane Wade doesn’t do after he dunks: scream; swing on the rim; pound his chest; pull back his jersey to show his heart; glare at anyone who dared to come near him while he was doing it; or point at the sky.

This is a 23-year-old second-year player who gets to the basket at will, dunks over whoever’s there and then runs back the other way. As he says, “I want to act like I did it before.”

Shaquille O’Neal and Wade form a tandem that’s already the game’s best and a worthy successor to the O’Neal-Kobe Bryant tandem that may have been the best ever.

If the league could decree such a thing or help it along, this would be the dawning of a new age, built around young stars with old-school games such as Wade and LeBron James.

If it’s early to be congratulating players who just arrived on their spotless reputations, James and Wade were good enough to be All-Stars in their second season and different enough to be lionized the entire weekend.

“There’s a lot of times, the league’s out there, the teams are out there marketing players, hyping players, trying to get everybody to believe that they’re better than they are,” Miami Coach Stan Van Gundy says.

“You don’t have to do that with these guys. Their play will carry the day itself. They’re truly humble guys who are genuinely good people.”

Actually, James, who used to yell “King James!” after dunks in high school, may not be that humble, although he carries himself well.

Wade, however, is truly low-key, a phenomenon rarely seen in such a spectacular young player.

O’Neal, who is not low-key, has named him “Flash,” since all of Shaq’s co-stars get nicknames.

Flash isn’t sure about that one.

“Well, at first I didn’t think it was going to be a good name,” Wade says, “but it’s stuck. Everywhere I go, that’s the name that people say, Flash. I like the name. When I’m on the court, that’s my name, Flash.”

How about off the court?

“No,” Wade says. “Not at all.”

Phenom From Left Field

“Everyone’s looking for the secret to him, and there really isn’t one. He is what he is.”

-- Marquette Coach Tom Crean

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Superstars don’t typically fly under the radar, but this one did.

Five years ago, James was a high school sophomore, about to make his name known at Adidas camp, a year from appearing on a Sports Illustrated cover as “The Chosen One.”

Wade was sitting out his freshman year at Marquette.

A 6-foot-2 power forward at Richards High in the Oak Lawn suburb of Chicago, he hadn’t made a qualifying SAT score, so many of the big schools didn’t pursue him.

His choices were Marquette, DePaul, Illinois State and St. Louis University. Not even Wade could see this day from there. The day Wade signed his letter of intent, Richards was in a Christmas tournament, playing twice the same day. Crean says Wade scored 48 points with 19 rebounds in the first one and 42 with 17 rebounds in the second. A Marquette assistant who was there called every 10 minutes with updates.

Crean began to think they might really have something. Wade was already an unusually serious young man, who married his high school sweetheart and had a 2-year-old son. As a student, he turned around, posting a 3.0 grade-point average in the second semester of his sophomore year in college.

As a player, he went in as a caterpillar and emerged a butterfly. “He needed an awful lot of things,” Crean says. “His dribble was up around his head sometimes. He didn’t really go left. So many things had to be worked on, but he was a willing participant.”

Most of the time, anyway.

“I threw him out of five or six practices his freshman year,” Crean says. “He just didn’t understand. I think we understood earlier than he did he could be pretty special. But, I mean, none of us knew. There’s nobody anywhere that could have thought he would take off as fast as he did.

“You know what, it’s a tribute to the way he worked. It’s a tribute to the way he works to this day. The day after his last season ended, against Indiana, he calls on his way to his final meeting. He’s on the phone with five of our players telling them what they need to work on in the spring and summer.

“They have their exit meeting and he goes to the gym and shoots that night. That’s the kind of player that he is.”

In 2003, Wade was selected fifth in the NBA draft. For Crean, it was like watching a rocket blast off out of his gym.

“What’s crazy,” Crean says, “is if he had stayed in school, he’d be a senior for us right now. That wakes me up every once in a while in a cold sweat.”

Jumping Shaq’s Flash

Of course, if Wade had stayed in school, Miami wouldn’t have gotten him, might not have improved from 25-57 to 42-40 and O’Neal might not have come. That may wake Van Gundy up every once in a while in a cold sweat.

In the celebrated 2003 draft, Wade went after Cleveland took James, Detroit took Darko Milicic, Denver took Carmelo Anthony and Toronto took Chris Bosh.

Such a miscalculation is supposed to be disrespect, a theme that comes up often these days. However, Wade, who isn’t really of this time, isn’t upset at all.

“No,” he says, “it’s cool. I mean, coming out, I think that’s the best position for me, especially going to Miami and going the fifth pick....

“I mean, LeBron’s No. 1. Darko was the No. 2 pick. A lot of people see a lot of upside, which he’s still got, he’s still young. Carmelo’s third, Chris Bosh was fourth and I was fifth and that’s the way it would go if I had to do it all over again.”

Miami was playing 6-9 Brian Grant at center but passed up 7-0 Chris Kaman to draft Wade. Heat President Pat Riley had glimpsed the greatness, but Wade surprised him too.

The further they went, the better Wade was, averaging 16 points his first season, 15 in the first-round victory over New Orleans and 22 in the second-round loss to Indiana.

Not long after that, O’Neal found himself looking for a new situation and this one looked pretty good.

It was love at first sight, from the time he and Wade began playing pickup ball in the summer.

“He has the all-around game that all guards should have,” O’Neal said on media day. “I was downstairs playing with D-Wade and he went to the hole and he threw a pass and it hit me in the face.

“He said, ‘You got to catch that.’

“I said, ‘Well, I’m not used to getting those passes, buddy.’ ”

O’Neal has strict expectations of a second fiddle. First, everyone must understand who the first fiddle is.

In Orlando, Penny Hardaway never challenged him and begged him to stay. However, the organization made a mistake, telling O’Neal he couldn’t make more than Hardaway, which O’Neal didn’t take well.

Bryant fit spectacularly with O’Neal, on the floor, as long as they lasted.

Wade fits with O’Neal on and off the floor. Of course, there were more surprises coming, such as Wade’s leading the Heat in scoring at 23.7 points a game to O’Neal’s 22.5. If this isn’t already Wade’s team, the day is coming.

Whoever it belongs to now, it’s good. The Heat started 11-7, have gone 39-9 since, and have run away from the East.

“This is pretty much the way I thought it would happen,” Wade says. “I know my personality and once I got to know Shaq’s personality, I knew that we wouldn’t have any problems.

“I mean, we’ve both got the same goal on the court. And off the court, we’re both the same, besides what you see on camera with Shaq. We’re both the same, humble guys and very quiet guys. So we get just along on and off the floor.”

Wade has always been levelheaded, even if he had to learn about focus and dedication. He’s levelheaded now, even if the spotlight has found him.

“I mean, it’s indescribable how many ways” his life has changed, he says. “From last year to this, my schedule is crazy. It’s like everybody wants a piece of you. You’ve got to decide who’s you’re going to give a piece of your time to, so it’s just a crazy, hectic schedule.”

Stardom isn’t simple for anyone, but whatever else it is for Wade, it’s here.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Shaq and Co.

The records of Shaquille O’Neal and his NBA perimeter partners:

*--* ORLANDO, 1993-96 O’Neal 28.6 ppg, 14.5 rpg Anfernee Hardaway 18.3 ppg, 7.0 apg Record: 148-98, .602 LAKERS, 1996-2004 O’Neal 27.0 ppg, 11.8 rpg Kobe Bryant 21.8 ppg, 4.3 apg Record: 445-189, .702 MIAMI, 2004-05 O’Neal 22.5 ppg, 10.2 rpg Dwyane Wade 23.7 ppg, 7.0 apg Record: 50-16, .758

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