“Without him we would not have won” — Jerry Colangelo could not have a better-defined contribution of  Dwyane Wade in the 2008 Olympics. Notably, Colangelo was the then-managing director of the United States men’s basketball national team program. Colangelo had reportedly selected Wade for the Olympics roster without knowing if he would be fit by then. But why were the Miami Heat star’s chances of playing looming with clouds of uncertainty? 

There is no hiding the fact that the 3x NBA champ struggled with injuries for a major part of his career. This was also the reason that he missed his spot on the 2012 Olympics roster. And the scenario could’ve been the same had he not recovered from his injuries sustained prior to season 2007-08. Coming off winning an NBA championship in season 2006, season 2007 did not start off well for Dwyane Wade. After dislocating his shoulder in February that year, he missed games for the entire month of March. 

Having suffered a torn labrum as well, Wade decided to go for rehabilitation rather than a season-ending surgery. And although he returned for the postseason, he was feeling pain in his left knee upon landing after a dunk. This worsened to where he had to get same-day knee and shoulder surgeries after the 2007 playoffs. 

By the time season 2007-08 started, Wade still had to miss two weeks and recover to be back on the court. And fortunately, there was still an eight months’ gap before he had to represent Team USA in the Beijing Olympics.

“Didn’t know if I fit…”: Dwyane Wade on his injuries ahead of 2008 Olympics

The 3x NBA champ detailed his feelings and beliefs during the time he was trying to recover from the injuries in Netflix’s ‘The Redeem Team’ documentary. In the documentary, Wade stated no one had thought he would even be on the Olympic team because he did recover the way he needed to. The 13x All-Star recollected that coach Mike Krzyzewski wanted him to be on the team. However, the then-managing director of the United States men’s basketball national team, Jerry Colangelo, was not sure.

Both Wade and Colangelo have on separate instances shared the incident where Colangelo had to visit Chicago to watch Dwyane Wade train. But the 3x NBA champ did not quite like the move, as stated by him. He felt it was just a part of his never-ending story of feeling like they didn’t appreciate him enough. “I was just trying to get myself back, get myself, you know, to that place… But I’m just sitting back watching like ‘Okay where do I fit in?’ Because I didn’t know if I fit in anymore,” he said.

However, not only did Wade fit but became the player to stack the highest points per game (16.0) in 8 matches with 67.1 field goal percentage and 47.1 three-point shooting percentage. Apart from this, he averaged 4 rebounds and 1.9 assists per game. In the final game of the Olympics run as well, he scored a team-high 27 points against Spain. Notably, this gold medal win held prime importance for Team USA after an embarrassing satisfaction with a bronze medal in the 2004 Olympics. And it was because of this that the 2008 USA Basketball Team received its name ‘The Redeem Team’.

The ultimate purpose was to win gold and redemption from the 2004 embarrassment. Even Wade had himself spoken of the embarrassment in an interview with People magazine. “We were the big bad Americans who got paid a lot of money to do what we do. We were the best in the world. And we went over there in 2004 and we got smacked, just literally smacked. That was very humbling and very embarrassing for us,” he said. And the redemption would not have been possible without Dwyane Wade, as stated by Jerry Colangelo.