Former Memphis Grizzlies forward Rudy Gay made headlines and caught the attention of plenty of Miami Heat fans with an audacious claim he made earlier this month. He expressed a belief that the Big 3 Heat wouldn’t have been able to beat the Grizzlies in 2013 if he’d still been in the fold with Memphis.
Unsurprisingly, Heat legend Dwyane Wade, who was a member of that Miami title team from all the way back in 2013, doesn’t see eye to eye with Gay on that assertion. Wade said that he sent Gay a private message over his viral quote and expressed shock that the former 17-year pro said what he said.
“So, I DM it to Rudy, ‘Hey, Rudy, this must be a AI-generated quote ’cause it ain’t no way in hell you said this,’” Wade said. “So, he hit me back, and he like, ‘Yeah, you know me. I said it. You got to have confidence.’ I said, ‘Boy, belt to a–.’ So, left it at that. Then I seen him at Melo (Carmelo Anthony) — at the after-party.
“I said, ‘Hey, man.’ I said, ‘Man, what’s wrong with you? You’re not just gonna win a Finals because you think you wanna win a Finals. We had just been in the Finals four years in a row. We smacking y’all. You don’t know how to win in the Finals, bro. You just think it’s that easy?’
“People really think it’s that easy, and that’s the thing with me when it comes to winning. It’s like, ‘Yo, stop — no.’ It’s not for everybody, and it has nothing to do with your individual talent and how great you are.
“Everything has to go right for you to win. Every break got to go your way. And so, man, stop that — I told Rudy, I said — well, we gonna work together at Amazon Prime. We’ll talk about it in the studio. That’s what I told him. I said, ‘We’ll talk about this in studio because you lost your damn mind.’”
It seems as if Wade maybe got his years mixed up when he said that the Heat were enjoying their fourth straight NBA Finals at the time, as 2013 actually marked their third trip in a row. The Heat played the Oklahoma City Thunder in the 2012 NBA Finals and Dallas Mavericks in the 2011 NBA Finals, but they got bounced in the opening round of the 2010 NBA Playoffs prior to the start of the Big 3 era.
Despite Wade’s mistake, he made a great point when he claimed that Gay doesn’t know what it takes to win on the league’s brightest stage. Not only did Gay never play in an NBA Finals, but he retired without a playoff series victory on his resume. Gay suited up in just three playoff runs in 17 years, and his teams unfortunately got bounced in the first round each time.
Plus, looking back to the Grizzlies’ 2012-13 season doesn’t provide any overwhelming evidence that Memphis would have won it all with him in the fold. While Memphis enjoyed arguably its best season in franchise history in the 2012-13 campaign, it still got swept and thoroughly outplayed by the San Antonio Spurs in the Western Conference Finals. That Spurs team didn’t even win the title either, as it lost to the Heat.
