Earlier this week, someone tried to tell me that James Harden, in Year 9, already has a superior resume than Dwyane Wade. When I tried to correct him, insisting that, surely what he meant was, “James Harden will retire with a greater legacy than Dwyane Wade”, he backtracked a bit, saying that yes, Harden is on pace to usurp Wade; Sensing his come-to-Jesus moment, I brought up Wade’s three championships, assuming that we would end up at a place where we could both chalk up his initial proclamation as something that wasn’t well thought out. Instead, Team-Harden attempted to poke holes in Wade’s bag of rings, using the predictable argument — LeBron won him two titles — before throwing down the all-time petty jab, “The refs gifted Wade the 2006 title!”
Since my combatant is 22 years-old — only three years younger than me, though, which doesn’t help his case — I wondered if such a small age gap was enough to separate those who witnessed peak-Wade, from those who had not. Still, he insisted that, even at 10 years-old during the 2006 NBA Finals, he remembered watching Wade’s greatness; Any chance of me believing him was a lost cause when he added, “Harden would’ve dominated just the same.” Once again, recency bias won out. For Wade’s sake, it’s time to fix this.
