Dwyane Wade Reached 1,000 Games VS Clippers

Miami Heat legend Dwyane Wade reached the milestone of 1,000 regular season NBA appearances on Saturday.

Dwyane Wade made his 1,000th appearance in the Heat’s 98 – 121 road win against the Los Angeles Clippers. In doing so, Dwyane Wade became the 15th active player to play in that many games.

In his thousandth game, Wade had 6 rebounds, 6 assists and 25 points in 32 minutes.

Despite the fanfare, Wade and the Heat staff weren’t placing much significance on the milestone before the game.

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“I don’t even know the significance of 1,000 games,” Wade said.

“I don’t know if it’s a big deal, I think it’s just another number.”

Such was the organization’s indifference, Heat coach Erik Spoelstra was unaware that Wade was approaching 1,000 games.

“That’s crazy to think about,” Spoelstra said.

“He’s showed an incredible amount of perseverance and resiliency,” Spoelstra said.

“That might be one of the main things that I’ll preach and teach to young players, to be able to show the grit it takes. The second thing, which is just as important about Dwyane, is he reinvented himself and committed so much off the court so that he could perform and be healthy and play how he wanted to play.”

At 894 games, nobody has played more games for the Miami Heat than Wade. While nobody has played 1,000 games for Miami alone, four players have hit 1,000 appearances while wearing a Heat uniform.

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The other three were Danny Schayes in 1996, Shaquille O’Neal in 2007 and Rashard Lewis in 2013.

Wade is feeling sentimental over something else now – the match against the Los Angeles Lakers on Monday night. It will be the last time in his career he faces LeBron James – and the two are set to swap jerseys to commemorate that.

“To be able to have that last matchup, I think for both me and LeBron, it’ll be cool,” Wade said.

“We’ll have a moment at the end of the game to exchange jerseys and talk. When I decided that the jersey exchange was something I wanted to do, LeBron, Chris Paul and Carmelo Anthony were originally going to be the only guys I did it with. Then it took on a life of its own, but doing it with LeBron, it will be special.”