MIAMI — Dwyane Wade said Sunday it has been difficult to put out messages about how important it is to shelter at home because he appreciates how fortunate he is in that regard.
But, first, the retired Miami Heat icon, speaking from his Los Angeles-area home on the NBA’s Instagram feed, stressed the need for teamwork amid the new coronavirus pandemic.
“People think it’s easy to bring 15 guys together and win a championship and play as a team,” he said of the NBA titles he shared in with the Heat in 2006, ‘12 and ‘13. “Right now, we’re asking the whole country to play as a team, and you see how hard it is.
“It ain’t easy to play as a team. It’s hard to bring people together, to say, ‘Hey, do this, this and this.’ And that’s what’s going on right now.”
Wade said he has been conflicted about joining other sports and entertainment personalities in taping messages about the importance of remaining at home.
“I haven’t come out and said a lot on it,” he said during the chat session with former Heat teammate Udonis Haslem, who joined the video hookup from his Southwest Ranches home. “And I’m just keeping it real, because a lot of people are coming out and saying, ‘Stay at home’ and do this and do that. And they reach out to a lot of celebrities to do that.
“And it’s a lot easier for celebrities to say stay at home when your home looks the way it looks, and you have everything at your home that you need.”
Having come from an upbringing in a broken family and financial distress in the Chicago area, Wade said he appreciates the shelter-at-home difficulties for many.
“In a sense, for me, I feel like we’re so lucky, we’re so blessed, and everyone isn’t in the same position that that ones talking on the front line are,” he said. “So it’s been a little hard for me to come out and put those messages out.
“And even though we definitely got to play as a team — to beat this, we all got to get on the same page and we definitely got to stay in and make sure we’re taking care of ourselves — it’s been hard for me to come out and say, ‘Hey, stay at home,’ this and that, because I’m living in a mansion. We have things at our home that a lot of people don’t have.”
He said it is imperative to consider those less fortunate.
“So this world that we live in has never been equal,” he said. “And it’s a lot of communities have never felt equality, what people talk about. Right now, we’re trying to make everybody equal, but the world has never been that way.
“So it’s been hard for me, as someone who lives a life of privilege, to come out and really say a lot of those things. Even, though, yes it needs to be said, it needs to be done, because we definitely need everybody to play together.”
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