The world may be changing at an alarming rate, but three things are going to stick around forever: death, taxes, and god-awful celebrity statues. At this point, it’s abundantly clear that the bronze artists of the world will never learn their lesson. If the eldritch effigies of Cristiano Ronaldo and Lucille Ball and Kurt Cobain and Anton Yelchin and Brandi Chastain and Lewis Capaldi didn’t change the tide, nothing ever will. In this grand tradition, the latest horror to be unveiled—a statue of former Miami Heat player Dwyane Wade—is, uh, well it’s not great. We may not cover sports all that often at The A.V. Club, but who are we to resist the allure of a sculptor who seems not to have googled their very famous subject even once?
Behold the statue, which now guards the entrance to the Heat’s Kaseya Center home in all its confounding glory:
BREAKING: The Dwyane Wade statue.
(h/t @ohnohedidnt24) pic.twitter.com/hgZUuZa5SJ
— Hoop Central (@TheHoopCentral) October 27, 2024
Even Wade had trouble processing the full magnitude of his bronze-y visage when the statue was unveiled on Sunday. “That’s crazy. I can’t believe that. Who is that guy?” he said in a speech at the event. To Wade’s credit, he did elaborate at a later press conference that his first emotion upon seeing the finished product was “Dude, that’s beautiful. I’m personally biased but I think it’s one of the best statues that’s been created because of what it represents for us and for me.” Per CNN, Wade is the first Heat player to be honored with a statue like this. Its pose is meant to capture his iconic “this is my house” celebration after a buzzer-beater win against the Chicago Bulls in 2009, which current-day Wade helped to pick out. “It was a beautiful process to be a part of,” he said.
Still, Wade’s retroactive approval hasn’t stopped the internet from comparing the statue to everyone from Laurence Fishburne to Kelsey Grammer to the Wooden Man from Oddity. The one real solace here is that it wasn’t made out of wax. Somehow, those are usually even worse.
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