Dwyane's World! Wade's World! Party Time! Excellent! [Screaming Guitars]

First off, a "well done" goes out to Nate for calling the Heat in six games in the NBA Finals. As he was the only Yellow Chair member to make a prediction, I will opportunistically invoke a collective pronoun to let everyone know that we called it.

Second, it's funny to compare how willing Shaquille O'Neal has been to acknowledge Dwyane Wade as Team Superstar #1--even going so far as to call him the "best player ever"--with how grudging he was to even acknowledge Kobe Bryant's existence as a human being, let alone as a teammate.

Lastly (and a long lastly), I had one recurring thought throughout the last few games of the Finals that I would like to share.

Isn't it cool that every one of Dwyane Wade team's in his five years of national-stage basketball has exceeded expectations rather convincingly? I think it is.

Last season (2004-2005, that is) may have been the one exception. But even though everyone knew that the Shaq trade would improve the Heat significantly, remember that not many people actually picked them preseason to win the Eastern Conference. Nevertheless, they made the conference finals and earned the next best thing to a conference title--the close-as-possible-without-actually-winning-the-conference-title title.

Which brings us back to Wade's rookie year, during which the Heat began 0-7 following bleak preseason expectations yet finished with the fourth seed in the East and went a round deep in the playoffs.

The story of his two years at Marquette are obvious. No one can predict a Final Four for any team--let alone one like Marquette--but more importantly, few experts, if any, predicted them to win the '03 Conference USA title. Nor did anyone pick them to finish second and crack the top ten in the AP poll in '01-'02. Hell, I remember what a shock it was for Marquette to knock off Indiana and Gonzaga in the Great Alaskan Shootout and to beat Cincinnati at home that year.

As for this year, count me among the everybody everywhere who assumed Detroit couldn't be beaten, unless by some odd chance (but only to Dallas, San Antonio, or Phoenix with Stoudamire). And although Wade benefited hugely from a large and awesome frontcourt this year, it's not as if the other eleven players on the Heat this year were all that spectacular. By the end of these finals, the Heat really had become Wade and the seminal "ragtag bunch of veterans." I certainly never expected this scenario so soon.

So though it's been said many times (...many waaayyys), Wade rules, Wade's the man, Wade's awesome...and so forth.


Oh by the way...does Dwyane Wade now supplant Chris Farley as the most famous person from Marquette? Yes, I know Farley would still be the most famous alumnus.

Oh by the way (#2)...does anyone from Marquette still think/wish Wade should/would have stayed in school one more year? If you do, you're an idiot. (And you were at the time also.)

Oh by the way (#3)...my mom just told me that Otis Day and the Knights will be in town for Bloomingdale Fest this month! SHOUT!