Dwyane Wade's fandom for the Bears runs long and true.
"We've had to endure a lot," said Wade, in town Friday with the Heat to face the Bulls.
So this season has been a pleasant surprise for the future NBA Hall of Famer, who was born in Chicago and raised in Robbins.
"At the beginning of the year, before (Khalil) Mack got traded here, me and my brothers were talking about the season and we thought we'd be a pretty good team. But when we got Mack, it just changed the mindset of the fan base and of course the guys on the field," Wade said. "They're responding very well and it's just fun to watch from afar _ me, QRich (Quentin Richardson) and the old Chicago guys. We enjoy it. And we live through it. We appreciate what the Bears are doing."
Wade regularly posts his support of the Bears on his social media accounts and also attended the Bears' overtime loss to the Dolphins in Miami on Oct. 14.
"We had a little outside box on the field with a little bar in there," Wade said. "There were a lot of touchdown shots taken."
But when the Bears came up on the short end, Wade had to endure merciless teasing from Udonis Haslem, a lifelong Dolphins fan.
"It was on a different level bad," Wade said, laughing. "But all in fun. Me and UD had a lot riding on it. But it was a good game. It sucks we came up on the other end of it."
The Bears haven't come up on the other end in weeks, riding a five-game win streak. They're even winning games now with backup Chase Daniel, who quarterbacked the Thanksgiving Day victory over the Lions.
Wade is firmly in the camp of the Mitchell Trubisky believers.
"I didn't know nothing about him when he got drafted. From the outside I looked and said, 'Well if they moved that far up to get him, then the potential is there.' And then it's about giving him an opportunity," Wade said. "As a fan, I wanted him to play from the start last year so he can just the reps in. ... He has all the potential to be one of the game's great quarterbacks. It's just about health and the guys you put around him. They've put a good team around him and he's doing well."
