MIAMI — Dwyane Wade won’t let it go because Mark Cuban won’t let it go.
That had the Miami Heat icon on Wednesday clapping back at the former Dallas Mavericks majority owner about the results of the 2006 NBA Finals.
Almost 20 years after the fact of that inaugural Heat championship season, Cuban last week went on the DLLS Mavs podcast and said of that championship series the Heat won 4-2 that if not for the whistles decidedly in Wade’s favor, that title would have belonged to the Mavericks.
2006 was stolen from the Mavs pic.twitter.com/yYfLppQFIS
— DLLS Mavs (@DLLS_Mavs) August 29, 2025
“I’ll take that to my grave, that it was stolen from us,” Cuban said, an opinion he has voiced numerous times over the intervening years, even after his Mavericks defeated Wade, LeBron James, Chris Bosh and the Big 3 Heat in the 2011 NBA Finals.
Former NBA referees Bennett Salvatore and Jack Nies were among the referees Cuban cited in his comments last week.
In moving to a 2-0 lead in those 2006 NBA Finals, the Mavericks attempted only four more free throws over those two games. But in taking the next four, the Heat attempted 55 more foul shots than Dallas, with Wade going into attack mode.
Cuban’s latest comments were not his first on the subject, commenting on a 2023 podcast, “Do I think it was fixed? I don’t know if it was fixed. But I certainly think that all the 50-50 calls were not gonna go our way.”
Cuban in November 2023 sold his majority interest in the Mavericks, but still retains a stake.
The latest comments by Cuban provided the takeoff point for the latest episode of Wade’s podcast.
“I heard Mark Cuban came out recently and said that he doesn’t care, he’s taking it to his grave,” Wade said, “2006 was rigged is what Mark Cuban said.”
That’s when Wade, reminiscent of those 2006 Finals, went into attack mode.
“Mark Cuban and I probably have had one conversation since then,” Wade said. “It was a very cool, cordial conversation. I love Mark Cuban from afar, everything that he has accomplished, everything he’s done. But Mark, stop saying that.
“Mark, we beat you’all, we beat you’all.”
Wade attempted 97 free throws in that six-game series. No Dallas player attempted more than Dirk Nowitzki’s 55. The Heat ended the series with 207 free-throw attempts to 155 for Dallas.
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“Did we get some foul calls? Everybody gets foul calls,” Wade said in his comments posted Wednesday. “We can all go back and point. I can go back and point in 2011, in one of those series, when Dirk had 48, he had 24 free throws in one of those games.
“Does that mean that the refs wanted them to win? I don’t know. But it wasn’t rigged. Like, we still have to play the game.”
Wade, now 43, was 24 when the Heat won that championship.
“And so, yeah, you had a young guy that was becoming a star in the NBA,” said Wade, who in 2023 was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, where he again will be this weekend for the enshrinement of Heat owner Micky Arison. “Did I get a few whistles, yes? But was I the only one attacking basket every play? Probably so, bro. I’m going to get some whistles, too. I’m going to get some calls.
“They were fouling. Let’s not act like that.”
Wade’s comments toward Cuban came across as both good natured, but also pointed.
“You’re not about to tarnish the work that I put in as a young guy, to do something that not a lot of young guys have done in this game, to say it was rigged,” Wade said. “Mark, stop that. You’all got us. Mark, stop that. You’all got us., we got you’all.
“It’s all love, baby. It’s all love. A lick for lick now. Stop that bulls—, Mark.”
