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Dion Waiters Traded

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Grade the Trade (Waiters + Kirk/Amundsen + 2nd rd pick for Smith, Shumpert, and 1st rd pick)

  • A+

    Votes: 18 7.1%
  • A

    Votes: 68 26.7%
  • B

    Votes: 106 41.6%
  • C

    Votes: 44 17.3%
  • D

    Votes: 10 3.9%
  • F

    Votes: 9 3.5%

  • Total voters
    255
  • Poll closed .
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I don't understand the fascination with Andre Drummond, he is basically a younger Deandre Jordan with better jumping ability. His touch on offense makes Tristan Thompson look like a skilled offensive player. I mean Drummond shoots the ball with the palm of his hand, he is never going to be a guy you throw the ball to and say go get us 20 points. His offense is always going to come from alley hoops or rebounds. He is always going to need someone to create for him. Dwight Howard was supposed to be the next great center but the thing is that the Ewings and Jabars don't exist anymore. All that is left today is 7 footers who can jump out the gym. How is Drummond's game any different than the Plumlee brothers or Larry Sanders. All of them are athletic guys with no offensive game.

With dion you have a guy who can get his own shot whenever he wants too as well as create for others. People say all of the time he is a selfish player but he has clearly showed he is a very good and willing passer. People forget that he is a shooting guard and a shooting guards number one priority is to score first not to assist but he is such a good passer that people get pissed when he shoots to much.

My favorite is how everyone says that he is just an inefficient scorer when he is shooting 43% and no one mentions that kyrie is shooting 43% but he is efficient. The almighty Klay Thompson is only shooting 44% but he is the greatest shooter ever in some peoples eyes, I mean Jerry West has even been quoted saying that he wants to see klay do more than just come off screens and shoot. We can't forget the next ray allen in Bradley Beal who is shooting a very efficient 41%.

Dion gets scrutinized way too much for a player who is not that far off percentage wise from some of the media's darlings at the shooting guard position in this league. He has shown the ability to blow past Lebron James and Paul George, some of the best defenders in this league with ease. Does he need to finish better, yes but let the kid develop before you label him.

Gotta love the hypocrisy in that statement. You just finished labeling Andre Drummond, younger than Dion, DeAndre Jordan with jumping ability. Come on, man...
 
Gotta love the hypocrisy in that statement. You just finished labeling Andre Drummond, younger than Dion, DeAndre Jordan with jumping ability. Come on, man...

I am a fan of Drummond, he is fun to watch but I just can't stand seeing people act as if the cavs passed on the next Olajuwon. I look forward to his development but I can't stand it that people thought that him and kyrie could have been our Chris Paul and Tyson Chandler when they are forgetting about a David west who was in his prime at the time. There is only so many alley hoops that can be thrown in a game. You mention that a center is the most coveted position and I agree but the desire for the next great center leads people to overate some of them. Like I said earlier, there are no more dominant big men, there is just a bunch of athletic 7 footers and power forwards who want to shoot threes all game. The post game is a lost art there are only a few players left who have a good post game and Roy Hibbert is one of them which is why he was paid 50 million and he is great defensively. I don't care about stats, I care about the eye ball test and when you watch Drummond do you honestly see him developing any sort of offensive game. Some of his layups look like they are going to break the back board.

You say any guard can give you dion's numbers when given the same amount of shots which I think is a weak argument because the only thing you see is shot attempts with out noticing defenses shifting to him which open lanes for other players for cuts or spot ups. You don't see the big men rotating over when he does get in the paint allowing for a dunk or clean ups for the cavs big men. If you are going to say that about dion than the same can be said for kyrie or Westbrook. These are professional basketball players of course they can score the ball when given a lot of shots.
 
Struck a nerve with three words, huh.

To start, calling Dion Waiters a budding 20ppg scorer is silly. In order to do so, he needs to take close to 20 shots a game-- even in his best month (March), he shot about 18 times a game and scored about 19. He's an inefficient scorer, and always has been; you'd be surprised how many guys could equal his production if they took the same number of bad shots. Overlooking his inefficient ways of scoring reeks of homerism.

I'm also not exactly sure what you mean by Dion "can play defense". He's currently worse than Kyrie, an awful defender, in defensive win shares, defensive rating, and steal%. To top it all off, Dion is a pretty bad rebounder. Now, he's better than Kyrie, and is no slouch. He can "play defense", just like many other guards in the NBA can. He's not special on that end of the floor by any stretch of the imagination, though, and is still prone to mental mistakes due to immaturity. Not sure where you're going with that.

Now, let's talk about Drummond. It's common knowledge that centers are the most coveted types of players in the NBA, as truly good ones come around very infrequently. Drummond, from a defense/rebounding perspective, is everything you want in a center-- dominant rebounder, and can anchor an elite defense with his size and shot-blocking. Roy fucking Hibbert just practically got a max contract while having no offensive game to speak of; these guys are so so so much more valuable to a team than guys like Dion. I'm really shocked you're even having me tell you this. And while Drummond is certainly raw offensively, he's still averaging 13ppg in about 32 mins. That's still great production, and he'll improve over the years.

Your projection for Dion is based on a small sample size that isn't majorly impressive when you look past the sheer numbers (not close to being equivalent to Drummond's production), and an abstract concept that he's "harnessing the chip on his shoulder for the better", which is quite the leap of faith given A) he's been an immature player his whole career and B) we've seen flashes of growing up from multiple players on this team, only to see them fall back to previous levels. Go ahead and hop on the Dion bandwagon after a month of him being different. I'll wait a bit longer, thank you very much.

I'm not dismissing the possibility he could ultimately be better than Drummond. I'm calling it idiotic to put the odds at 50/50.

Is it though?

Post All-Star Break Dion Waiters: 19.2 PPG on 45.2% from the field, 37.7% from 3, and 74.1% from the line in 33.0 MPG.
 
Is it though?

Post All-Star Break Dion Waiters: 19.2 PPG on 45.2% from the field, 37.7% from 3, and 74.1% from the line in 33.0 MPG.

He very well could be low 20s by next season. 45 pts from our back court is completely possible next season.
 
Struck a nerve with three words, huh.

To start, calling Dion Waiters a budding 20ppg scorer is silly. In order to do so, he needs to take close to 20 shots a game-- even in his best month (March), he shot about 18 times a game and scored about 19. He's an inefficient scorer, and always has been; you'd be surprised how many guys could equal his production if they took the same number of bad shots. Overlooking his inefficient ways of scoring reeks of homerism.

I'm also not exactly sure what you mean by Dion "can play defense". He's currently worse than Kyrie, an awful defender, in defensive win shares, defensive rating, and steal%. To top it all off, Dion is a pretty bad rebounder. Now, he's better than Kyrie, and is no slouch. He can "play defense", just like many other guards in the NBA can. He's not special on that end of the floor by any stretch of the imagination, though, and is still prone to mental mistakes due to immaturity. Not sure where you're going with that.

Now, let's talk about Drummond. It's common knowledge that centers are the most coveted types of players in the NBA, as truly good ones come around very infrequently. Drummond, from a defense/rebounding perspective, is everything you want in a center-- dominant rebounder, and can anchor an elite defense with his size and shot-blocking. Roy fucking Hibbert just practically got a max contract while having no offensive game to speak of; these guys are so so so much more valuable to a team than guys like Dion. I'm really shocked you're even having me tell you this. And while Drummond is certainly raw offensively, he's still averaging 13ppg in about 32 mins. That's still great production, and he'll improve over the years.

Your projection for Dion is based on a small sample size that isn't majorly impressive when you look past the sheer numbers (not close to being equivalent to Drummond's production), and an abstract concept that he's "harnessing the chip on his shoulder for the better", which is quite the leap of faith given A) he's been an immature player his whole career and B) we've seen flashes of growing up from multiple players on this team, only to see them fall back to previous levels. Go ahead and hop on the Dion bandwagon after a month of him being different. I'll wait a bit longer, thank you very much.

I'm not dismissing the possibility he could ultimately be better than Drummond. I'm calling it idiotic to put the odds at 50/50.

Better.
 
He very well could be low 20s by next season. 45 pts from our back court is completely possible next season.

Exactly! Keep them together and let them play together. Both are young at 22 and potentially could grow into an elite backcourt.
 
Drummond, from a defense/rebounding perspective, is everything you want in a center-- dominant rebounder, and can anchor an elite defense with his size and shot-blocking. Roy fucking Hibbert just practically got a max contract while having no offensive game to speak of; these guys are so so so much more valuable to a team than guys like Dion.

Are guys like Drummond really as valuable to a team as you're saying ? In today's NBA, Superstars win championships, not rim-protecting bigs. I like Drummond
but I'm not sure he'd be "so so so much more valuable to a team than guys like Dion".
 
One can hope they'll develop better together. I still think it's concerning that Waiters and even Jack have played easily their best ball paired with Delly and not Irving. Irving's skillset doesn't seem to match up well with players who need to have a rhythm to be effective. I'm hoping we keep Miles as I think his game tends to fit best with Irving and jettison Jack who is really redundant and takes away Delly's minutes.

Not saying Dion and Irving can't work together but at this point I don't think anyone can say definitely it work one way or the other so probably best to tailor the roster whichever way it goes. Luckily for us Dion, appears to be effective either as starter or sub if paired appropriately.
 
One can hope they'll develop better together. I still think it's concerning that Waiters and even Jack have played easily their best ball paired with Delly and not Irving. Irving's skillset doesn't seem to match up well with players who need to have a rhythm to be effective. I'm hoping we keep Miles as I think his game tends to fit best with Irving and jettison Jack who is really redundant and takes away Delly's minutes.

Not saying Dion and Irving can't work together but at this point I don't think anyone can say definitely it work one way or the other so probably best to tailor the roster whichever way it goes. Luckily for us Dion, appears to be effective either as starter or sub if paired appropriately.

You are not going to have Dion here as a long term sub. You can't have two players who will likely be deserving of playing 33+ minutes per game and avoid having them share the court together. Even if you can minimize their time on the floor at the same time, it just doesn't make any sense. Your top players are even stronger when they play together and use each other's strengths.

Regardless, Dion wouldn't accept spelling Kyrie long term.

If they cannot coexist, one will be gone.
 
You are not going to have Dion here as a long term sub. You can't have two players who will likely be deserving of playing 33+ minutes per game and avoid having them share the court together. Even if you can minimize their time on the floor at the same time, it just doesn't make any sense. Your top players are even stronger when they play together and use each others' strengths.

If they cannot coexist, one will be gone.

Players can coexist in different ways. Ginobili has been a ridiculously good SG (really just only below Kobe/Wade and at the same level as guys like Ray Allen) and Pop has shuffled him between the starting lineup and bench for years. It's not like he can't play with Parker but his unique skillset which is similar to Dion's has been used to make sure that the Spurs always have a playmaker on the floor at all times. This is not a criticism of Dion, in fact what I'm talking about is maximizing his skillset as much possible and also recognize that Kyrie for all his gifts is not a PG like Chris Paul at this time no matter how much we want him to be that type.

Similar to Parker, Irving is also a score-first type of guard and and the Cavs need to find ways to make sure when he's not in the game, that Dion and Delly get all those minutes. Again it's not about starting/bench, it's about making sure you can maximize the talent you have. Getting rid of Jack and keeping Miles would go a long ways in doing that
 
Players can coexist in different ways. Ginobili has been a ridiculously good SG (really just only below Kobe/Wade and at the same level as guys like Ray Allen) and Pop has shuffled him between the starting lineup and bench for years. It's not like he can't play with Parker but his unique skillset which is similar to Dion's has been used to make sure that the Spurs always have a playmaker on the floor at all times.

Similar to Parker, Irving is also a score-first type of guard and and the Cavs need to find ways to make sure when he's not in the game, that Dion and Delly get all those minutes. Again it's not about starting/bench, it's about making sure you can maximize the talent you have. Getting rid of Jack and keeping Miles would go a long ways in doing that

Parker and Ginobili work well together, though - and your original premise was that Kyrie doesn't work well with players that need a rhythm (implying Dion and Jack).

I agree with Jack should be out, Miles a better fit (as should everyone lol) - I agree that the Spurs have done nicely in maximizing their talent (and often having either parker or Ginobili on the floor - often both to finish games)...but I think our situation is a lot different.

Both Dion and Kyrie are going to want to finish games. If they are not an efficient combination, it's not going to work, starting vs bench aside.

As you said at the beginning "One can hope they'll develop better together". That, I think we can all agree on.
 
Parker and Ginobili work well together, though, and your premise was that Kyrie doesn't work well with players that need a rhythm (implying Dion and Jack).

I agree with Jack should be out, Miles a better fit (as should everyone lol) - I agree that the Spurs have done nicely in maximizing their talent (and often having either parker or Ginobili on the floor - often both to finish games)...but I think our situation is a lot different.

Both Dion and Kyrie are going to want to finish games. If they are not an efficient combination, it's not going to work, starting vs bench aside.

As you said at the beginning "One can hope they'll develop better together". That, I think we can all agree on.

You've answered my point for me: you make sure Dion has to time to get his rhythm so that when they do end up finishing games both have had a chance to warm up. Players are always more effective at the end of the games is if they've been able to see the ball go in the hoop earlier in the game.

Whether Dion's start or not: he needs' to be on the floor with Delly when Kyrie is off the floor. We'll have to agree to disagree because I see a lot of similarities between Parker/Ginobili and Dion/Kyrie. Only other comparison would be Dragic/Bledsoe but we have Mike Brown not Horny running the show
 
One can hope they'll develop better together. I still think it's concerning that Waiters and even Jack have played easily their best ball paired with Delly and not Irving. Irving's skillset doesn't seem to match up well with players who need to have a rhythm to be effective. I'm hoping we keep Miles as I think his game tends to fit best with Irving and jettison Jack who is really redundant and takes away Delly's minutes.

Not saying Dion and Irving can't work together but at this point I don't think anyone can say definitely it work one way or the other so probably best to tailor the roster whichever way it goes. Luckily for us Dion, appears to be effective either as starter or sub if paired appropriately.

Everyone plays better with Dellavedova than they do with Irving. Using that as your proof is misguided.
 
Everyone plays better with Dellavedova than they do with Irving. Using that as your proof is misguided.

Not really: you want your second best player to be at his peak at the end of the game to go with Irving. If that means playing with Delly and just as importantly some meaningful minutes w/o Irving, make it happen.
 
Are guys like Drummond really as valuable to a team as you're saying ? In today's NBA, Superstars win championships, not rim-protecting bigs. I like Drummond
but I'm not sure he'd be "so so so much more valuable to a team than guys like Dion".

Maybe or maybe not, but Drummond is a really unique player (not necessarily great, just unique), even going back in NBA history. The scary thing with him is that most bigs peak around 30 years old, he has a long way to go before he reaches his potential.
 
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