| Wade hasn't forgotten his roots |
SWEET HOME CHICAGO | Heat star gives boost to underprivileged kids at basketball camp in Blue Island BY John Jackson Even though the Miami Heat was eliminated in the first round of the NBA playoffs last season, this summer has been unusually busy for Dwyane Wade. He witnessed the birth of his second child, had surgeries on his left shoulder and left knee and even made it out to Las Vegas last week to watch the U.S. national team in training camp. ''I wanted to help kids that grew up like me in the inner city,'' Wade said, ''and this is a step in that direction. If there's one or two kids out of this that are successful, I feel I will have done my duty.'' Wade feels a connection to all the campers, but he admitted to keeping a close eye on one particular player. ''What made me smile today, my oldest son, Zaire -- he's 5 years old -- he participated in the camp today and he did good,'' Wade said. ''He was up there with the 8-year-olds. It made me smile that he was out there.'' Operating a basketball camp is challenging enough, but Wade also has to find time in his day for rehabilitation sessions as he works his way back from the surgeries after the Heat was eliminated by the Bulls. ''It's coming,'' he said. ''I'm rehabbing daily. I'm trying to get two, three hours a day. Right now, I'm working on my shoulder, trying to get my range of motion back. I'm working on my knee, getting strength back in it. ''I'm on pace to be where I need to be. There's no timetable of when I'm coming back, but I'm on pace. I feel good, and my doctors haven't told me I need to pick it up.'' Whether Wade is on pace to be ready to play when the regular season begins in November remains in doubt. ''Right now, I don't think I will be, just because of everything I heard from the doctors, saying they want me to take my time,'' he said. ''This shoulder injury, everyone knows, is a four-to-six-month injury, and my doctor is leaning closer to six months than four months. ''But everything can change. My main thing is to keep going forward and have no setbacks.'' After playing with both the shoulder and knee injuries during the playoffs last season, Wade wants to make sure he's healthy before taking the court next season. ''I'm rarin' to go, but I've played injured before and it sucks when you can't do what you want to do,'' he said. ''I don't want to get out there and can't do what I want to do. I'll make sure when I come back on that court, I'm as close to 100 percent as my body can get.'' If he would have been even 95 percent against the Bulls, Wade said the series would have been ''totally different.''
|