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via Imago

via Imago

Early in his transition from Primetime to Coach Prime, Deion Sanders shared the secret behind his confidence. 10 years later, Dwyane Wade is ‘dressing’ the part. D-Wade showed the latest sneakers from Way of Wade while revealing his pre-game ritual from his NBA playing days. The biggest shocker of this demonstration was discovering The Flash is a sock-shoe-sock-shoe kind of guy.

Wade captioned this unprompted Reel with, “If you look good, you feel good, if you feel good, you play good, if you play good…y’all know the rest [money bag emoji] @deionsanders.”

The full quote by Coach Prime goes, “If you look good, you feel good. If you feel good, you play good. If you play good, they pay good.” He said that to GQ in 2013 when he was kickstarting his post-NFL second act. It was seen as arrogance a decade ago but like with all of Sanders’ mannerisms, it holds merit.

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Ironically, D-Wade is underdressed in this Reel. He’s only in quirky drawers seated on stairs. “I’m going to give you some insight into something that I did that was consistent in every game. Someone will say that I was superstitious. Some people call it like a pre-game ritual. This for me was something that happened one time because I played very well. And I wanted to make sure it was consistent.” 

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He showed off the authentic NBA socks by Nike that he still has from his playing days. He always had to put on his left sock first, followed by the left lavender sneaker. Something he did in his final season a lot was fold the top outwards to let the orange band outwards.

He repeatedly emphasized, “I always put my left game shoe on first.” This was before he hit the court. He wasn’t doing this before warmups and it was the last thing he did before leaving the locker room. It was to ensure his shoes were tight.

He’d also throw it back to all those moments we saw D-Wade in his Miami Heat jersey, constantly retying his shoes and testing out the fit. That was because his feet swelled up while playing and he had to adjust his game shows repeatedly. Despite this reminder, there was another pre-game ritual Miami fans recall.

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Dwyane Wade’s pre-game to-do list

When Wade was briefly playing in Chicago and Cleveland, and when he was inching towards retirement in 2019, Miami fans were preparing themselves where Wade’s little quirks didn’t start a game. It wasn’t just him retying his shoes or chewing gum during games. It was Dwyane Wade’s pre-game pull-ups that would form a Miami fan’s pre-game viewing ritual too.

Before a game, he would go up to the rim and do three pull-ups. Fans commemorated a year of his retirement reliving the pregame pullups. One tweet read, “Raise your hand if you remember the pregame pull-ups,” and Wade duly complied.

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This time he’s hurt sensibilities by revealing he doesn’t do the normal sock-sock-shoe-shoe ritual. What other D-Wade quirks do you remember?

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