“It took us 10 years to get it, the blood, the sweat, the tears, but we got it!”

When a few games of cards feel like the hunt for an NBA championship, words matter. For Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Famer Dwyane Wade, his words after a recent spades tournament — and not after a basketball playoff series — mattered.

While recapping his experience at the annual Stance Spades Tournament during NBA All-Star Weekend — an event Wade won for the first time with his wife and cards partner, Gabrielle Union — Wade appeared nearly as gratified as when he won his three NBA titles or his 2008 Olympic gold medal. During an appearance on his “The Check-In with Dwyane Wade” podcast, Wade sat proudly with the spades tournament trophy he and Union won in West Hollywood.

“I grew up on this game,” Wade said before kissing the trophy.

Spades is that serious to many, and since 2015, the Stance tournament has been a staple for NBA players past and present, as well as other well-known celebrities in the entertainment industry. This year’s event brought several NBA All-Stars to the Los Angeles area, including the Milwaukee Bucks’ Giannis Antetokounmpo, the Miami Heat’s Norman Powell, the Toronto Raptors’ Scottie Barnes and recently retired guard Chris Paul.

Consider it either an alternative for athletes who are not competing in the NBA playoffs, or a household complement to the games on TV throughout the spring. Those who sit at a table and open a new deck of cards understand: There’s a connection between athletes and card games, particularly spades. Players are expected to lock in and make big plays on a table just as naturally as they would on an NBA floor.

“The strategy side of it, especially with your teammate — being able to read without communicating,” Powell told The Athletic. “The same way as knowing if your teammate is going to cut or fan out for a 3, I just think the strategy and the chemistry building is very similar.”

To understand the allure of spades, one must understand the history.

The game was created in Cincinnati during the late 1930s and became popular in the 1940s with U.S. soldiers during World War II, as well as college students. Derived from bid whist, spades traditionally features teams of two where competitors play the highest card as they follow the particular suit on the table. When a player is out of the suit, he can cut with any spade card, which can alter a game plan and result in a win for him and his partner.

Sports journalist and broadcaster Taylor Rooks, who co-hosted the Stance event with Wade, has heard stories of NBA athletes playing spades in the locker room and on the plane, for money or for fun, and surely for bragging rights. There are leagues and associations dedicated to the game. It’s a getaway of sorts, a way to escape the daily routine of professional basketball.

Dwyane Wade and his wife, Gabrielle Union, won the 2026 Stance Spades Tournament during NBA All-Star Weekend. (Terrance Moore / The Athletic)

What makes a game of spades so competitive? Those who have watched can provide emphatic anecdotes and recollections of arguments, fights, supreme trash talking and table antics that can lead to an unexpected level of intensity.

Many players enjoy the game, but also the self-expression.

“When you play spades, there’s a performance to it,” Rooks said. “There aren’t really the same confines to how you talk about how good you are in spades as there are in so many other things.”

Spades has a reputation for being a game relatively simple to play, but incredibly complicated to master. Playing well has less to do with the cards dealt and more with how a player reads the table. Playing into a partner’s strengths is equally imperative as playing away from the weakness of an individual hand.

With the best players, spades is a mental game. Talking trash is less of an accompaniment and more of a psychological tactic. Utah Jazz assistant coach Jason Terry competed in the Stance tournament this year and said that “competitive banter and trash talk is definitely the best part of the game.”

As someone who played 19 seasons in the NBA and won a championship with the Dallas Mavericks in 2011, Terry also appreciates the similarities between spades and basketball.

“Spades is about nonverbal communication skills, partner chemistry and strategic gamesmanship,” he said.

When Wade isn’t working as a minority owner of the Jazz or participating in one of his many side jobs, he’s a proud spades player who sits at the table with a competitive edge. Wade originally started the Stance tournament in 2015 as an intimate event. Celebrity attendees have included Beyoncé, actor Michael B. Jordan, Naismith Hall of Famer Allen Iverson, Hall of Famer and former Heat teammate Chris Bosh and others.

For Wade, creating the event was a way to bring together two of the games he loves.

“This was therapy, a relationship builder,” Wade said during the podcast.

All eyes are on the NBA playoffs, but a good game of spades — especially in a tournament environment — can bring Game 7-esque aura. Victories will always matter, particularly for athletes who have grown accustomed to winning. And as the game’s popularity rises, so will the excitement of events like the one Wade has helped make popular during All-Star Weekend.

Except the focus isn’t on hitting the clutch shots, but laying down the right cards.