Dwyane Wade: NBA free agency comes down to ‘player relationships’

Dwyane Wade had an interesting take on how NBA free agency works in the current era.

Wade said Tuesday that free agency is no longer a matter of team executives building a roster. Instead, he believes the process is much more heavily influenced by relationships and recruitment between players.

“The league is different today,” Wade said Tuesday, via Nick Friedell of ESPN. “The league is all about relationships, player relationships. Obviously presidents and GMs have their job to do to put teams together, but when it comes to free agency, that’s player relationships more than anything. It’s where an individual wants to go, so you have to feel comfortable with where you’re going and who you’re going with. And it starts in that process. Maybe you have a relationship with a guy, maybe you don’t, but it starts in that process when guys are able to reach out to you and you see.”

Wade admitted that his decision to join Chicago was no different, as he was heavily impacted by lobbying from Jimmy Butler.

“If the star player on the team doesn’t reach out to me then I don’t think he’s really excited about me coming there,” Wade added. “If Jimmy don’t reach out to me then I’m not coming to Chicago because I don’t think Jimmy wants me here. But Jimmy reaches out to me and says, ‘D, I want you to come,’ it’s a different — that’s simple right there. It’s hard to change my mindset and everything.”

Even before joining the Bulls, Wade was deeply familiar with how personal relationships can impact free agency. That’s how the LeBron James edition of the Miami Heat came about, and James wanted to make it happen again in his current home. Wade is right, though. It seems like every prominent free agent is recruited not just by front offices, but by key players as well.