For Dwyane Wade, it all started as being the overlooked underdog

Looking back at how it all started for Dwyane Wade, being overlooked by most college recruiters

Many NBA fans will be surprise to learn that future first ballot Hall of Fame player Dwyane Wade was not heavily recruited in high school mainly because of academic issues and partially because of the high school he attended.

Wade, the Robbins, Illinois native, did not play basketball in the very tough more popular Chicago Public League that has produced stars like Derrick Rose, Kevin Garnett, Jabari Parker and Anthony Davis.

Instead, Wade played basketball at the lesser known Richards High School in Oak Lawn, Illinois where he helped put the school on the map by averaging over 20 points a game his junior year.

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During the summer, before his senior year, Wade started on the AAU powerhouse Illinois Warriors summer basketball team alongside his more popular teammate and future No. 3 NBA Draft pick Darius Miles who also had academic issues but was considered the best player in Illinois. So some major colleges were willing to take a sit out a year approach with him if he chose their school over entering the NBA Draft.

Also, on that team was Matt Lottich, who played for Stanford and is the current head coach of the Valparaiso men’s basketball team.

So, unfortunately for Wade, when the recruiters came to see the Warriors play they came to recruit Miles and Lottich despite Wade being chosen by teammates to guard their opponents’ best player. Many of those players Wade guarded was considered the best players in the country and Wade more than held his own against them.

Still, Wade entered his senior year at Richards with very few Division 1 college scholarship offers in a year that was largely considered a down year for talent in Illinois or maybe those recruiters spent so much time recruiting Miles and Lottich that they missed out on a superstar in the making or they thought Wade was not worth them waiting a year for him to become eligible to play.

It was not like Wade was playing on some no name team against a bunch of nobodies. Wade started for the Illinois Warriors basketball team; a team that every major Division 1 college coach and recruiter keep their eye on. He also more than held his own against the best high school players in the country, but that was not enough to get him Division 1 scholarship offers because of his academic issues.

Even his senior year of dominance was largely written off by recruiters because of his academic issues and the league he played in. Recruiters ignored his multiple 30 point games with triple-doubles because he played for Richards high school instead of Simeon, Morgan Park or Westinghouse in the notoriously Chicago Public League.

His Warriors teammate Lottich did not play in the Chicago Public league either, but he did play for New Trier, a school that was more respected for basketball than Richards and played in more competitive Holiday tournaments. And Lottich, unlike Wade, had the academics to play right away.

Wade would sign a letter of intent to play for Marquette University before finishing his senior year averaging 27 points and 11 rebounds a game, but he still was not ranked as a Top 100 basketball player in his 2000 recruiting class.

At Marquette, Wade helped lead the Golden Eagles to the Final Four by scoring 29 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists against the top ranked Kentucky Wildcats, which helped him earn the MVP of the Midwest Regional.

Soon after, Wade would make himself eligible for 2003 NBA Draft where he was selected with the 5th overall pick by the Miami Heat and the rest was history as Wade would help lead the Heat to three NBA championships.