Dion Waiters

Dion Waiters
SG, 6’4, 225lbs, 25 years old, 5 years of experience

In Miami, Waiters found a team that both allowed and needed his unique, awkward playing style. Waiters has always wanted to be “the man” in the half-court offence; similarly, Miami needed him to be. And up to a point, he was. On the plus side, Waiters shot 39.5% from three on the season and had some big performances. But on the flip side, his three-point rate was only .324%, his free throw rate was only .192%, his free throw shooting a poor 64.6%, his shooting at the rim was only .507%, his mid-rangers were plentiful, and his overall true shooting percentage was only .507%. Waiters had some good moments and some game winning performances, but for a player that is still essentially scorer-only, and who needs a large share of the ball to have an impact, those aren’t good numbers.

Player Plan: Expiring $2,898,000 salary, and will want a lot more than that. As useful as he was at times, Waiters’s limited production, seemingly skewed sense of it and his awkward playing style unconducive to modern offences should temper his price tag to something resembling at absolute most a two or three year MLE, which even then would be an overpayment based on the hope he will sustain and improve further.

Pick 4: The Twitter era is great, but it's trying its best to ruin the NBA draft. Multiple figures, most noticeably the venerable Adrian Wojnarowski, are scooping picks a matter of seconds before they are officially announced, which rather pisses on the chips of those of us purists who still try to read Stern's body language and lips as he makes the pick in the blissful ignorance of his authority. Since you can't help but find out these things by accident if you're on it, it's impossible to use Twitter at this time.

That said, even when you know what it is, the pick can sometimes still be a surprise. And that's what happens here. Cleveland takes Dion Waiters from Syracuse, a man adjudged to be barely a first rounder a few months ago, coming off a 12.6 points per game season as a score-first type of player. A suitably damning assessment of the pick was made by Jonathan Givony back before the pick was even made:

I can only imagine the conversation an owner will have with their GM in two-three years if Dion Waiters ends up being a bust... "So you took a 6-3 SG 6th man who everyone had in the 20s in May in the top-10 despite no workout, physical or interview? You did that why?" "But, a front office with a history of bad decisions promised him at the end of the lottery! I figured they HAVE to know something we don't" If he was some kind of long-armed athletic freak with a superb attitude and intangibles, I could maybe understand. But of course he's not...

In essence, then, Cleveland just picked Voshon Lenard with the fourth pick. You can see why they wanted to trade up.

Givony is not the only person to be denouncing the pick, or the idea of Waiters going that high before he had even done so. It probably doesn't help that Mark Jones further points out Waiters' problems with "maturity," which is totally what you need to hear from a man with a questionable skillset and average physical tools. But not even the most cynical of men had him going as high as number four. Cleveland made a similar shocker of a pick at this spot last year when they took Tristan Thompson. in a move that's going okaayyyyyyyyyish, but now they've done it again. And this one is rather impossible to justify. Waiters may well go on to be a capable scorer in the Gary Neal mode, but that is no justification for picking him so far ahead of tangibly, measurably better prospects.