Why the NBA Has Brushed off Dwyane Wade Way Too Early

October 9th, 2012 by Ethan Sherwood Strauss Leave a reply »
You would think Dwyane Wade's clout might endure a bit better than this. After slogging through a below-average (for him) playoffs en route to a championship, Wade has fallen down to No. 8 in ESPN's NBA Player Rankings. This after a season in which the off-guard tumbled down to third-team All-NBA—an explainable decline, given that he had missed 16 games and his minutes had been cut some.

But it was surprising to see Wade ranked below, say, Kobe Bryant, a player who posted lesser efficiency numbers and hasn't been past the second round of the playoffs these past two seasons. The Heat are probably smart to give Wade abbreviated playing time, as he is injury-prone, but we can chalk up his No. 8 standing to the decrease in status that comes with Ginobilification.

Simply put, despite being third among all players in PER, Wade will find credit hard to come by at 33 minutes per night. 

I believe that we over-adjust for the difference between a 37-minute-per-night starter and guys whose per-game totals hover around the low 30s. It feels much like the gap between "starter" and "bench," a distinction that prevents James Harden (or anyone, for ...

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