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When the Heat lost to the Raptors on Sunday, it ended Miami's season. It also ended any hopes of Dwyane Wade squaring off against his former teammate and close friend LeBron James in the Eastern Conference Finals. But thanks to a feature story ESPN published early Friday, people are still talking about the LeBron and D-Wade connection.
It's not exactly a secret that LeBron and Wade are BFFs. Back in early March, they both caught a ton of flack after their trainer posted a Snapchat video of them working out together. It caused some people to question their commitment to their respective teams. But in the ESPN piece—which is called "The Friendship That Divides the NBA"—reporter Pablo S. Torre digs deep into their relationship and discovers that it extends far beyond the basketball court. He also uncovers some interesting tidbits about them that we didn't already know. Here are five things we learned about LeBron and Wade's friendship from the feature.
LeBron knows more about Wade than his wife Gabrielle Union does.
Gabrielle Union is quoted throughout the ESPN feature, and almost immediately, she divulged this nugget about how close LeBron and Wade really are. "If we played The Newlywed Game," she said, "I don't know if I'd have more information on my husband than Bron would."
Wade didn't dispute that. "Me and Bron would know waaay more," he said. "Obviously."
Uh, obviously?
Wade routinely trusts LeBron to order meals for him when they go out to eat.
Wade hates seafood. At least, that's what his wife thinks. It seems he doesn't mind eating it if LeBron orders it for him, though, according to this excerpt from the ESPN piece that describes how LeBron often orders dinner for Wade when he's running late:
"My wife wouldn't know what to order," Wade says, "but Bron's like, I got it." Two years ago, at just such a dinner in New Orleans, Union could only watch, deeply confused, as James unilaterally picked seabass for a man who'd expressed a lifelong distaste for fish. "It's what I wanted," her husband would later explain, shrugging. "Bron got me on seabass."
Oh well. As far as secrets your significant other doesn't know about you, it could be a lot worse, right?
LeBron and Wade used to have sleepovers during road trips.
Like Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter before them, LeBron and Wade used to sleep over each other's houses instead of at their team's hotels when they were playing in each other's cities. As Wade's wife put it: "There were more creature comforts, more privacy." (Also, more furniture to build dope forts with!)
LeBron helped Wade when he first gained full custody of his two sons.
When Wade won full custody of his two sons Zaire and Zion in 2011, Union noticed how much her husband depended on LeBron. "He needed someone to be brutally honest with," she told ESPN. "Someone who could share his joy and his fears about this massive change in his life."
That meant being a sounding board for topics such as "bedtimes, school schedules, [and] carpools." LeBron—or "Uncle Bron" as Wade's kids call him—also talked to the two boys on a regular basis.
LeBron and Wade (probably) use the L-word.
Do LeBron and Wade use the L-word around one another? It's a question we had never considered. But Torre asked Wade about it and, while he got weird when the concept of love came up—"Not like with my wife!" Wade said. "It ain't like looking at each other eye to eye, like, I love you"—he did admit that there's love between them.
"You know, yeah, we say love," he said. "There's nothing wrong with men expressing love for each other, if you're secure in your manhood and who you are. So, yeah. We'll end a conversation with Aight. Love. Or, Love you, bro. We have that kind of relationship."
Who knew? Okay, on second thought, maybe we should have already assumed this.