Dwyane Wade loves his new statue.

“I was like, ‘Dude, that’s beautiful,’” the Miami Heat legend told reporters Sunday after a bronze representation of his 7-foot-2 likeness was unveiled outside Miami’s Kaseya Center.

“Personally biased, I think it is one of the best images ever created because of what it represents to us and to me.”

Not everyone agrees.

One of the most iconic moments of Wade’s 16-year career came on March 9, 2009, when he stole the ball and hit the game-winning three-point shot in the final seconds of double overtime against his hometown Chicago Bulls in Miami. In the immediate aftermath, Wade jumped onto the scorer’s table, pointed to the floor around him and declared, “This is my house!”

Wade said it was his idea to immortalize that pose with the statue.

“What I feel when it comes to a statue, when it comes to moments like this, I think it should be something that when the fans think about you, when they think about your career, when they think about your life. ..what’s the first thing that comes to mind?” said Wade.

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“And so if you’re a fan of myself, if you’re a fan of the Heat, I’ve had a lot of moments – I don’t think there’s a bigger one than this. You know what I mean, like, ‘This is my house.’ moment is the greatest moment of my individual career. And this was an individual moment for me to choose that.”

However, the image does not capture Wade’s likeness to the satisfaction of numerous social media users, who have noted that it looks more like Laurence Fishburne, Kelsey Grammer, Ken Norton Jr. and others seems.

Fellow Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer Paul Pierce noted the statue’s similarity to his former Boston Celtics teammate Tony Allen, writing, “D Wade needs a repeat of the legendary fa this.”

Some have even mentioned it in the same breath as another infamous sculpture that was eventually replaced: the bizarre bust of Cristiano Ronaldo that appeared at an airport in Portugal in 2017.

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Sculptor Omri Amrany, who created the Wade statue together with Oscar Léon, is not bothered by the criticism. The Chicago-based studio he co-founded with his wife, Julie Rotblatt Amrany, has created more than 300 sculptures worldwide — including the statue of Kobe Bryant in his No. 8 jersey and that of Bryant with daughter Gianna, both unveiled at Crypto.com Arena earlier this year – and the reactions have become quite predictable.

“Every time you unveil a sculpture, there are people with different comments,” Amrany told The Times on Monday. “That’s normal. Art that (evokes) no response is the most boring art you can have.”

He added: “We had the same thing with Kobe No. 8. After we revealed the piece, we received very bad messages from several people. You know, it’s their right to express themselves however they want, and if I act like a psychologist to their frustration, so be it.”

Wade called the creation of his statue “an amazingly collaborative process” and indicated he had tremendous input on what the final product would look like. Amrany said they went to great lengths to get Wade’s likeness correct, having him personally modeled for them and using computer technology to study photos of the iconic moment they wanted to capture.

“We highlighted a two-second moment in his life when he jumped on the table and was in screaming mode,” Amrany said. “And that’s it, that’s what happens to the face when people do this activity, this facial activity.

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“We are very committed to very high detailed quality to deliver exactly what the exact photo gives us. If someone says this doesn’t look like Dwyane Wade in action, they don’t know Dwyane Wade in action. Or they don’t know Dwyane Wade in action. I don’t remember that. And it’s okay for them to say whatever they want. We live in a country of freedom of speech until now, hopefully forever.”

After the statue was unveiled, Wade took a long look, smiled, nodded and said, “Looks good,” before addressing the crowd.

“I didn’t prepare much because I just wanted to feel this, man,” Wade said. “I wanted to look at it.”

He stopped to take another long look at the image.

“That’s crazy,” Wade said, still in awe. “I can’t believe that.”

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This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.