Miami Selected Marquette’s Finest 5th Overall In ’03

Celtics coach and former Magic head man, Doc Rivers, recently chatted with Mike Lupica on ESPN New York and revealed his miss on trading up for Dwayne Wade.  A close call, well, not exactly.

Rivers, a Marquette alum himself, had this to say about the chances of almost getting Wade:

“Obviously he went to Marquette. I watched him practice. I will tell you a quick story. Dwyane came in to work out with us when I was coaching the Magic and he really shouldn’t have. I think we were the 15th pick or the 14th pick. He had no business coming. He just came because of the Marquette connection.

“We had a workout. We had Keith Bogans and a couple of other guys. He dominated that workout more than I have seen any player dominate a workout to a point where we were scrambling trying to make a trade to get him in the draft and move up. We felt a lot of people didn’t know it. We had a deal with the Miami Heat if their guy didn’t come up the pick was ours. Well when the pick came to Miami … and Dwyane Wade we thought that we had him because we didn’t know that Miami liked him and then they called us right before they were about to pick and they said ‘We’re sorry. We have our guy.’ And they picked Dwyane Wade.”

There was actually rumors of Wade’s hometown team, the Chicago Bulls, trading up to Toronto’s spot at 4 (Bosh) in the draft that year to acquire Dwayne.  Once he dropped past the Raptors, Pat Riley must have been as thrilled as a lottery winner. So, in all reality, I don’t think the Heat were going to make a trade with the Magic with “Flash” on the board at 5.

It was a misconception from Rivers, that they were on the “in and in” on the Wade Special.  However, the ’06 Finals MVP wasn’t a secret; and after working out with Miami, it was a done deal that Wade would end up in South Beach.   In essence, I don’t believe Doc was as close to obtaining D-Wade on draft night in 2003, as he was in the image below.