Miami Heat guard Dion Waiters is at the center of a cyclone of news and reports over the last few days. If what these reports say is true, that also says much more.
The Miami Heat aren’t ones to deal with a ton of outside interferences or occurrences when it comes to how they operate or handle their business. A no-nonsense moniker has not only seemingly followed Pat Riley throughout his career, but has manifested and grown in an exponentially large proportion since becoming the Heat’s head personnel man.
After all, it is said that it was Riley’s unwillingness to relinquish certain powers or to hinder the power of his favorite head coach in Erik Spoelstra, that played a major part in LeBron not considering re-signing in 2014. With that in mind though, if LeBron couldn’t throw his weight around, what gives Dion Waiters the nerve?
Who knows, but what we do know is that according to Sean Deveney and his work for Heavy.com, Dion Waiters has been on the trade block for almost a year now. Specifically and according to one unnamed NBA GM, he’s at least been on the Miami Heat’s trading block “since last Christmas”.
What does this mean though? Outside of the fact that Waiters has apparently worn out his welcome in South Beach, it says quite a few other things. Let’s take a quick look here.
First off, it definitely confirms that a supposed interest from Golden State over the summer was a farce. In the slew of moves that saw Golden State needing to reload from an offensive firepower perspective, word started to float around that Waiters may have been one of their targets. These statements prove that sentiment to be absolutely wrong and not the case at all, Deveney also addresses that as well with this quote.
"The Warriors were mentioned as a potential Waiters destination this offseason, but that was pure speculation. A source told Heavy.com that Golden State in no way inquired about Waiters in the past year."
It also confirms what we had all been thinking, Waiters has been cantankerous across the majority of his career, still is, and everybody knows it. While you thought that being enveloped in the Miami Heat Culture would go a long way towards helping Waiters mend his ways and reputation, it apparently hasn’t.
It says a lot that as the Miami Heat were trying to create space and maneuver this past summer after signing Jimmy Butler, they probably couldn’t even give Dion Waiters away. You take this stance based on the fact that you never once heard his name mentioned within any potential moves, while Goran Dragic was traded 147 times it seems like, before he ultimately wasn’t.
While there are a few more instant analysis takeaways you could throw in, those are the most shocking ones. These were that Golden State didn’t have an interest in Waiters, although they need scoring in the worst of worst ways, and on top of that, no one apparently wanted him at all. It is a very volatile time for Dion Waiters, the next developments should be interesting ones.