“Kobe at 11 is criminal,” Shaquille O’Neal said a few days ago, and if you’ve seen Bleacher Report’s latest top 100 all-time NBA players list, you already know the chatter. The list had Steph Curry ranked above Kobe Bryant, and let’s just say—it didn’t sit well with a lot of fans and former players. Ranking the greatest of all time? It’s always going to be messy. Everyone’s got their own criteria, their own legends, their own bias. But here’s where it gets interesting. While some players clearly feel some type of way about these rankings, Dwyane Wade doesn’t care for any of these “idiotic” rankings.

In a snippet from his podcast recently shared by Heat Diehards on X, Wade addressed his own spot at No. 23 on the list, and his response was the most unbothered thing you’ll hear all week. “The one person I commented back with when they asked me this question was Remy. He asked, how do you feel about this? And he was talking about me being ranked 23rd…And I told them. I said. Man. I don’t care about that stuff. I said, it literally means nothing. I said, I’ve gotten everything out of this game. I’m still eating out of this game.”

He wasn’t just brushing off the list. Wade used that moment to speak to a larger truth about how rankings work, and more importantly, who’s behind them. “That’s just someone’s opinion that’s never played a game at that level,” he said. He pointed out that the uproar wasn’t even about him—it was mostly about Kobe Bryant being left out of the top 10.

“I saw so many think pieces, so many people really like up in arms about it and it was really about Kobe being on the outside of the top ten. And I’m just like… yeah, if you want to ask us hoopers who played against Kobe—we talking, all of us gonna talk top three. Like we all gonna talk top three.” But as Wade reflected, rankings lose weight when they come from people who’ve never been on the floor with legends like Kobe. So when he saw himself listed at 23, he didn’t flinch. “Why am I up in arms about something like that?” he asked.

He also brought up how Kobe Bryant himself handled rankings during his playing days. “I remember when Kobe was alive, they had ranked when he played in the league and they had him low. I remember one year and Kobe addressed it like, ‘Who is these idiots?’ Like, ‘Why would I listen to these idiots?’” Wade clarified, “I’m not calling a person who did it an idiot, but what I’m saying is, when someone does something like that, Kobe was like, ‘this is idiotic to me.’” He added that ranking players across generations—especially ones you’ve never seen play—is nearly impossible. “So you’re going off of what? Statistics that’s on a paper? Yeah. And that’s hard to rank somebody like that. Like, how do you come up with these rankings? Do you throw names in a hat and pick them out or do you just go by statistics?” 

In the end, D-Wade knows exactly who he is and what he’s done. And that’s enough. “Because there’s a lot of people statistically going to look better than someone ahead of them—or someone, lord, I’m gonna have better—you can’t do it. It’s not championships. Like, it has no rhyme or reason. But for Wade, it’s all love. “I always tell people I’m a kid who grew up watching this game. A kid who grew up in the inner city. I grew up playing on a crate. That’s how I learned how to play basketball—on a crate. If you’re telling me that my name is going to be mentioned in any rankings of anyone’s of the greatest to ever play the game of basketball, I’m cool with that. I don’t care where you put me because really it doesn’t matter. I’m cooked. My career is cooked already.”

Dwyane Wade believes his prime was on an MJ-level trajectory

If you’ve ever watched D-Wade in his prime, you know the man was electric. Acrobatics at the rim, sneaky steals, wild blocks for a guard—he made basketball look beautiful. In just his third season, Wade dropped 27 a night and dragged Miami to a title. Finals MVP. Just 24 years old. From 2005 to 2013, he was one of the most complete forces in the NBA—22.0 points, 5.4 assists, 4.7 boards, 1.5 steals, nearly a block per game, shooting 48% from the field.

Sadly, the way Wade played—fearless, physical, high-flying—eventually caught up with him. Knee issues, especially patellar tendinitis, began to limit his availability and athleticism after his early dominance. On 7PM in Brooklyn podcast, Wade opened up about it all. “I did so many different things, I played so many different roles,” he said. “That’s one of the reasons why I don’t get— I’m not the greatest shooter of all time. I was great at so many different things. Then I learned how to be great at being a role player. I learned how to be great at all these things, and no one knows really how to break down my game. They look over and they just go to one or two things, but I did so many things in the game of basketball.”

And then came the part that really hits. “When I had it, I had it. Before injuries, I was like, ‘MJ, I’m coming for you.’” No exaggeration. The numbers, the accolades—3x champion, Finals MVP, 8x All-NBA, 13x All-Star, a scoring title, seven top-10 MVP finishes—back him up. He had the third-best Box Plus/Minus in the league during his prime, behind only LeBron James and Chris Paul. Ahead of Kobe, Duncan, Dirk, everyone. So was Wade really on that MJ-type trajectory? We’ll never know for sure. But if you need the B/R list to put it in perspective, his highest Top 100 ranking? 13. His lowest? 39.