Re: Welcome Dion Waiters
No offense, but these are baseless assumptions
1. He improved immensely on the defensive side of the ball from his freshman to sophomore year. He has quick hands and was their best perimeter defender when he wanted to be. He has the strength and size to be a very good defender. Additionally, they played a zone.
2. So you're saying the one guy, who was clearly the best guard in the Big East and played for the best team in college ball for a while, won't help translate points to wins? You do know why Boheim made him the 6th man, right?
Not baseless ... I'm not saying he can't develop into a quality defensive player either.., I just haven't seen it yet. His steals actually came due to him cheating off his defensive responsibilities in the zone more often, and would, on most occasions, would likely lead to him being lectured by his coach afterwards ...especially in the NBA, it would end up with somebody on the opposition sailing free to the hoop for a layup.
Maybe more of what I've seen and heard is more to do with immaturity than him being a kid that just has an aversion to defense. So, I'll hold off judgement on him in that regard. All young kids coming into the game have issues that need addressed.
My main problem doesn't have as much to do with Waiters personally, anyways. It has to do with what I perceived as a pretty big value disparity between Waiters and Robinson. I can see if we are a contending team with depth of talent across the board and are looking for that singular piece to put us over the top when disregarding a value difference as big as what I see between Robinson and Waiters. But, when you are a team that is woefully thin pretty much across the board, years away from contention, and with many opportunities to come to fill holes and target particular positions, you take the high value player. The only position on this current team I might think to shy away from in that regard would be point guard. That's just how I think, personally ..and how I would operate in the Cavs position.
Now, I'll say this ..I don't know Dion Waiters that well, or as well as I know many in this draft. Have only been on hand at workouts where he was involved once, and only really met him once where I had an opportunity to talk to him, which was pretty brief to tell you the truth. I was there more to work with another kid at that same event,... and this was after his freshman campaign, and prior to his sophomore. I liked what I saw of his work ethic. The guy that was working with him individually was putting him through the paces on a multitude of skill set drills, and what I liked was he seemed like a kid that worked on his weaknesses as hard and diligently as the things he had a personal liking for and what were his perceived strengths. So, that is a good sign moving forward.
What I love the most about him is what many may see as a weakness, but I don't. He's sooo cocky and full of confidence that it stands out in a big way. When you are a shooting guard and a scorer, you want him to have an unwavering belief in himself, and not be a person that will miss a few shots early and then mentally shut down and take himself out of his own game. No, this guy knows wherever he goes, and whatever game he's in he's the best player on that floor. He;s gonna shoot until he proves that fact too. So, from that standpoint, he's got a scorer's game, a scorer's skill set, and a scorer's mindset and self confidence to the core. And I love that fact.
The weaknesses will be going from the zone based defensive sets that he's become accustomed to at Syracuse, and converting that type defensive mindset to the NBA game where he'll have to physically and mentally be sharpened to player's strengths and weaknesses, fight through picks, and move his feet and not his hands. At Syracuse he was in zones, cheated off his responsibilities often, and when in trouble always reached, lunged and grabbed instead of moving his feet and staying fundamentally sound within the framework of the schemes he was in. Yes, he did lead conference in steals, but ...the means to that end was fundamentally flawed, and in the pro game those same risks will find his man or another players man coasting the the rim for an easy layup more often than not..
Now, that is what I mean by a player that converts points to wins ...he has to tune his game up defensively in a big way from where he was in college or all the points he'll be able to put up in the NBA, and I don't doubt that he'll have the ability to score well in this league, but all those points he will be scoring will be coming back at him on the other end of the court in a big way as well.
He's gotta bring the level of skill and confidence that he has on the offensive end, to the defensive end as well.
Another issue I saw with him, and I'm not sure it's really a long term issue or weakness ..was that in the time I saw him personally he was carrying lots of loose weight. Now, it was offseason and you always have to give players some slack there ...but he was significantly overweight at that point and I would hope that that isn't a real concern moving forward because one thing the NBA game exposes first and foremost with the pace of the game and how many games that come at you every week for seven months is your personal training and fitness ..and taking it even further your diet and discipline to a well structured schedule of practice, sleep, and sound diet.
I want the kid to succeed in a big way ...my biggest problem wasn't as much with him as what I perceived as a value disparity. And it's my philosophy that at this stage of a rebuild , with a thin roster and many holes throughout roster ...you simply don't bypass that degree of value disparity to zone in on a specific position on the court.. not at this juncture of the rebuild.
