Chiang: "When you look at the breakup between the Heat and Jimmy Butler this season, where do you believe the blame lies? And how tough was that to watch unfold?"
Wade: “Well, the one thing I’ve realized is don’t go around planting blame on somebody when you really don’t know what’s going on. I wasn’t in the room where it happened, so I don’t know and I’m not into pointing fingers necessarily. … What I don’t like more than anything is just the stain it puts on our franchise. We have one of the greatest franchises for the last 20, 30 years that’s in professional sports. We don’t want the conversation to be about that, we want it to be about the success that we’ve had and how we’ve created that success. So it was a very unfortunate time.
“You understand that relationships come to an end. A six-year relationship is a long time for a lot of people. So it’s OK that their relationship needed to come to an end. It’s just sometimes it doesn’t always have to be so nasty or ugly.
"I just wanted to make sure that I voiced my opinion. I knew there was smoke. I think I was very clear with my message when I had the time to speak during my statue moment. That was a moment that was about me and I took the moment to talk to the team, and tell them who Pat Riley is and who this organization is. And I knew if everything did not get on the right line, some shit was going to go down. I felt that at that time and that’s why I said that message. Everybody wasn’t in attendance, but the message went out loud. I had a feeling because I knew enough and obviously I have relationships. Ultimately, the relationship needed to end, which it did. It’s just sometimes there has to be a better way that we can handle things, whether it’s the player or our front office. We just got to do a better job because this is a part of our history.”
