BAMAPHIN 22
FinHeaven Elite
Spike Lee is seated across from Dwyane Wade, then shouts "action" as the steamy gymnasium transformed into a temporary studio becomes silent. "Show us your game face," says Lee, the die-hard basketball fan and renowned director.
Wade knows the line is coming. He turns to the left, then back toward the camera, but can't hold the serious look and breaks out laughing.
Indeed, these are fun times for the Miami Heat's superstar guard, who is becoming perhaps just as valuable in the business world as the basketball one. A new batch of Converse television commercials with Lee, featuring Wade's newest shoe line, hits the airwaves Thursday. A new Gatorade ad campaign is coming this winter. He's selling cell phones for T-Mobile and sports-utility vehicles for Lincoln. He's on the cover of GQ and countless other magazines, too.
Dwyane Wade or "Wade, Inc." as he referred to himself, albeit only half-seriously is everywhere.
Even he can't truly believe how quickly it's all happened.
"It's all overwhelming," Wade says. "But nice, too."
Winning an NBA championship and taking home the finals MVP in only his third season served as the perfect capper to his meteoric rags-to-riches story, the one where a poor kid from a tough neighborhood in Chicago becomes a college star at Marquette, a first-round draft pick, Shaquille O'Neal's prime cohort in Miami and arguably the game's hottest star.
He'll get his first championship ring next Tuesday when the Heat open their season against the Bulls. He signed a contract extension over the summer that could be worth around $63 million. That figure might look like chump change when he signs his next deal sometime around 2010.
http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/wireStory?id=2606355
Wade knows the line is coming. He turns to the left, then back toward the camera, but can't hold the serious look and breaks out laughing.
Indeed, these are fun times for the Miami Heat's superstar guard, who is becoming perhaps just as valuable in the business world as the basketball one. A new batch of Converse television commercials with Lee, featuring Wade's newest shoe line, hits the airwaves Thursday. A new Gatorade ad campaign is coming this winter. He's selling cell phones for T-Mobile and sports-utility vehicles for Lincoln. He's on the cover of GQ and countless other magazines, too.
Dwyane Wade or "Wade, Inc." as he referred to himself, albeit only half-seriously is everywhere.
Even he can't truly believe how quickly it's all happened.
"It's all overwhelming," Wade says. "But nice, too."
Winning an NBA championship and taking home the finals MVP in only his third season served as the perfect capper to his meteoric rags-to-riches story, the one where a poor kid from a tough neighborhood in Chicago becomes a college star at Marquette, a first-round draft pick, Shaquille O'Neal's prime cohort in Miami and arguably the game's hottest star.
He'll get his first championship ring next Tuesday when the Heat open their season against the Bulls. He signed a contract extension over the summer that could be worth around $63 million. That figure might look like chump change when he signs his next deal sometime around 2010.
http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/wireStory?id=2606355
