Dwyane Wade's statue has a new head, two years after the internet decided the original looked more like Laurence Fishburne.
The Miami Heat unveiled the new face on the bronze statue Friday, Oct. 30, sharing photos on social media
. The work was done over the last few days behind a plywood box so nobody outside the Kaseya Center – the Heat's home arena where the statue stands – saw it until it was finished.Only the head changed
The rest of the 8-foot statue still shows March 9, 2009. That night Wade scored 48 points, hitting a 3-pointer at the buzzer to beat the Chicago Bulls 130-127 in double overtime, before jumping onto a courtside table to tell the crowd whose house it was.
The face never matched the moment. Wade agreed, and on Friday he put
it in writing in an essay titled "This is My House."
"If people don't feel that connection when they look at the face, why wouldn't we try to make it better?" he wrote.
“It may be my likeness, but it will always be our house.” - @DwyaneWade
— Miami HEAT (@MiamiHEAT) October 30, 2026
A closer look at the enhancements to his statue. pic.twitter.com/VmcBYsEzDK
Two years ago, he defended it.
The Rotblatt Amrany Studio sculptors said they spent about 800 hours on the original, and Wade was involved the whole way. At the Oct. 27, 2024, unveiling, he called it "one of the best statues that's been created because of that it represents for us and for me." He said it was never meant to be an exact copy of his face. It was "the artistic version of a moment that happened."
The memes kept coming anyway.
"When you know everything that went into creating something, it's easy to defend the work," Wade wrote Friday. "It also belongs to Miami."
He said the Heat "listened and had honest conversations with everyone involved," before they agreed to redo the head. He also made a point of not blaming the artists.
"It's about being willing to listen," he wrote.
(Below, a meme after the original Wade sculpture was unveiled in 2024)
The dwayne wade statue looks like hes riding a invisible motorcycle pic.twitter.com/eNplDdjpCZ
— PFT Commenter (@PFTCommenter) October 27, 2024
Sculptors Omri Amrany and Oscar Leon told The Athletic that seeing the piece at full scale in its permanent spot showed them where the portrait could be stronger. Their studio also made the Michael Jordan statue in Chicago and Kobe Bryant's statue in Los Angles.
Wade was the first Heat player to get one.
He's the franchise's all-time leading scorer and won three championships in Miami. He made 13 All-Star teams. The Heat retired his No. 3 jersey in 2020, and was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2023.
The Heat closed their post Friday with Wade's last line. So did he.
"Because it may be my likeness, but it will always be our house."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Heat unveil new face on Dwyane Wade statue after years of jokes. Here's why
