Miami Heat 1-on-1: Is Dion Waiters an integral part of the team’s success?

What do you think Miami’s 2017-18 run would have looked like, if Waiters had remained healthy?

Rahming: Realistically, if you look at the standings, with a healthy Waiters, the Heat were good for another 48-34 record this past season, the same as the out of nowhere Indiana Pacers.

At the end of some tricky standings math which involves not losing to the Pacers in overtime during their first head-to-head matchup of the season, the Heat would’ve been able to grab the No. 5 seed and then eventually pull off the upset of the LeBron James led Cleveland Cavaliers, that the Pacers could not. They would’ve shredded both the Toronto Raptors and Washington Wizards, to ultimately later find themselves in the Eastern Conference FInals playing with house money.

Johnson: I’d like to say that Miami would have reached at least the fifth seed with a healthy Waiters.

However, the Heat were 27-23 without waiters from December 23 to the season’s end. Prior to his absence, their record was 17-15, meaning both of the season’s segments were near identical percentage wise (.540 versus .531). Unless Miami gelled in such a way that would have outpaced the work put in by the Philadelphia 76ers, Cavaliers and Pacers, my guess is that Waiters presence doesn’t change much through the regular season.

That said, come playoff time, we’d finally see a player in his most natural form: Playoff Waiters. Waiters made the playoffs only once before, with the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2015-16. With Miami this season, Waiters would have been able to show off his true colors, likely making the first round more interesting than it turned out to be.