Dwyane Wade and Carmelo Anthony are age old friends, but now it’s time to make each other face some hard-hitting realities. Notably, ahead of its July 14 release, Disney and Pixar’s Inside Out 2 has its commercials running during NBA’s Eastern Conference Finals. And featured in the commercials are Wade and Melo to promote the $188 Billion company’s upcoming project. 

Apart from Dwyane Wade and Carmelo Anthony, the spots also feature what are supposedly human representations of their emotions. This is a reference to the Inside Out lead character, Riley, whose emotions come to life in the films. One spot involves Melo reminding Wade of his missed 3-point shots during 2004. Meanwhile, the other shows D-Wade taking a subtle dig at Anthony for not having any championship rings. 

“Go inside the heads of @DwyaneWade and @CarmeloAnthony with Disney and Pixar’s #InsideOut2. See Disney and Pixar’s #InsideOut2, only in theaters June 14,” read the caption to the post shared by Pixar. The spot ‘go inside Dwyane Wade’s Head’ depicted the former Miami Heat star recollecting his game back in Florida in 04. “You miss all those 3s. How did that make you feel?” Melo replied. What comes next is a hilarious conversation between 3x NBA champ’s two emotions — anger and embarrassment. 

 The anger gets all riled up and goes on a rant of having three rings and being the big three. And after a discussion between embarrassment and anger, the real life Dwyane Wade in the spot hilariously goes for a cold shoulder move. Coming to the second spot, ‘go inside Carmelo Anthony’s Head’, the former Heat star offers Melo some onion rings. Meanwhile, his 3 championship rings are also highlighted in the shot — a subtle dig at Anthony having none. 

This time the conversation is between the former New York Knicks star’s two emotions — anger and envy. “We get it, bro. You got three championship rings,” the anger says. Meanwhile, envy is convincing anger that Dwyane Wade is actually just talking about onion rings. The spot ends with Melo telling the 3x NBA champ to just get some fires next time. 

Despite an illustrious career, why did Melo get no championship to his name?

From his college to the NBA, Melo won a lot of things but an NBA championship. Some of his notable awards and accolades include 2003 NBA champion, 2013 NBA scoring champion, 2x US Basketball Male Athlete of the Year, and 3x Olympic Gold Medalist, among multiple others. Apart from these accolades, the 39-year-old also had an impressive start to his career. Debuting with Denver Nuggets — a team that missed playoffs in the previous 8 seasons — he led the Nuggets to playoffs in all 7 seasons he was in the franchise.

This was something even LeBron James failed to do in the first two of his career. Melo reached the playoffs in all first 10 seasons of his career and 13 times overall. But the stars never aligned for him to win an NBA championship. Notably, in his first 13 seasons, he only got to play alongside just 3 All Stars. However, it was not just the fault in his stars, but some of his poor choices as well that did not let him win any championship.

In 2007, Dwyane Wade, LeBron James and Chris Bosh signed a 3-year rookie extension in 2007. Anthony could have done the same, but he preferred financial security and went ahead with the Nuggets with a 5-year deal. Had he not done this, he could have joined Wade and Bron in the Miami Heat. But as destiny would have it, Melo retired without any championship to his name, landing in the category of best players without a ring.