Dion Waiters Traded

Tornicade said:

Im guessing you dont have friends

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Thank you for contributing to the discussion!

Do you actually have knowledge of the friendship between Dion and Butler?

On another note, reading some of your posts, I am sure that people are fighting to be friends with you!

gijimbo said:

For some reason I felt like Dion was being sarcastic. Does he actually like Butler? Or was he sarcastically taking a dig at him for talking too much?

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It sounds like they're friends and they trash talk to each other on the court. That's not exactly uncommon.

Jack Brickman said:

It sounds like they're friends and they trash talk to each other on the court. That's not exactly uncommon.

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That does make sense. I just didn't remember hearing or seeing anything with Dion and Butler being close. It almost seemed like Dion was being tongue in cheek. I'm also not sure how they would even know each other (age difference, didn't play each other in college?).

I don't really care either way, just seemed like a weird response by Dion.

gijimbo said:

That does make sense. I just didn't remember hearing or seeing anything with Dion and Butler being close. It almost seemed like Dion was being tongue in cheek. I'm also not sure how they would even know each other (age difference, didn't play each other in college?).

I don't really care either way, just seemed like a weird response by Dion.

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You don't have to be the same age to have met a ton of other people in AAU ball, and there are plenty of NBA players who are friends that we probably never hear about. We never heard about Dion texting LeBron last year until this week.

Jack Brickman said:

You don't have to be the same age to have met a ton of other people in AAU ball, and there are plenty of NBA players who are friends that we probably never hear about. We never heard about Dion texting LeBron last year until this week.

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Good point. I was probably reading into it a bit much.

I like the fact that Dion accepts the challenge against Butler. Friend or not.

gijimbo said:

Thank you for contributing to the discussion!

Do you actually have knowledge of the friendship between Dion and Butler?

On another note, reading some of your posts, I am sure that people are fighting to be friends with you!

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gijimbo said:

That does make sense. I just didn't remember hearing or seeing anything with Dion and Butler being close. It almost seemed like Dion was being tongue in cheek. I'm also not sure how they would even know each other (age difference, didn't play each other in college?).

I don't really care either way, just seemed like a weird response by Dion.

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They were both on the US Select team and Syracuse did play marquette twice in 2010-11 season. two schools in the same conference.

why would you need a background to determine the validity of a statement made by an NBA player about his friendships. They asked him about Chicago and he answered.

I thought Butler was at least four years older but I was wrong.

I don't think that NBA players are above lying about friendships though. I understand trash talk between friends, but I originally thought Dion was really putting a lot of emphasis on Butler's talking.

It is probably nothing.

Must be the first loss Cavs ever where there has been no activity in the Dion thread.

I thought he looked very solid on defense about 75% of the time. He didn't let Melo light him up in the post, and he contested some other shots by Smith and others, some of which just were tough and went in. He forced at least one 24-second violation. Some of the time he coasts on defense -- not fighting as hard as he can through screens, letting his man get the wrong position, not boxing out (like a lot of other Cavs tonight). But he seemed to have a defensive focus out there, which was good to see. He had at least one bad sequence (fouling the 3-point shooter, not hustling), but he seemed to be less up-and-down defensively than last year, where you could see terrible plays where you knew Brown would yank him. I think he got pulled early once by Blatt but otherwise was trusted. If he can not get abused by SFs in the post, he's going to see extra time until Miller and Marion start contributing something.

Yes, that 3-on-1 break was a complete disaster. Even more disappointing was the open-3 he drained when LeBron got called for the offensive foul. I think they were down 7 at the time. I don't think he knows where to be on offense yet and was deferring. On the plus side, he didn't seem to be holding the ball and messing up possessions. Just not as aggressive off-the-ball and with-the-ball as he could be.

Yeah, among the hype that was wrong last night was the idea that our failure will be piled on Dion. Nope, that dude showed up last night. Apparently emotional games still get to our veteran though haha.

Really liked Dion last night. There were people around us in the arena that kept yelling for Waiters to shoot it because there seemed to be a lot of overpassing and he was the dude willing to take shots.

And yeah, that 3 they took away was a huge momentum killer, it was like a holding penalty on a goddamn touchdown.

He played well on offense and great on the ball defensively but the number of times he was caught in the lane searching for someone to guard was worrying. He wasn't the only one though. He did seem to rise to the occasion which bodes well for the postseason

You know Wuck, I don't think any of these guys truly understand how to play without the ball all that well, James included. Maybe he knows, and he's just not doing it?

That's one area Ray Allen could truly help in, teaching these guys when and how to move without the basketball.

Realistically the best player on our team to fit that description is Andy Varejao, but his shots come from different locations and different actions. He's the best on the team moving without the basketball.

That's where Dion and Kyrie don't fully understand the breadth of LeBron's basketball knowledge. If they knew when to cut, and actually cut well, James would be delivering them the pass in the shooter's pocket.

Both guys grew up as "ball in their hands" guards, and that's got to be a factor in them not knowing how to truly play without the basketball. Any shooter can run off a down screen and get open, but to truly excel at it takes much more commitment to the nuances, and the understanding of Blatt's different actions.

Frank Reynolds said:

You know Wuck, I don't think any of these guys truly understand how to play without the ball all that well, James included.

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I think Dion has shown that he plays better with the ball (or guarding the ball) to date, than he does without the ball or without guarding the ball. We'll see how that develops.

There have been signs that various Cavs are playing off the ball well (or getting better at) but it wasn't on display so much that night. I agree it's not a team strength yet, but there's time...

Waiters played very well. He didn't force any shots. He took open shots in the flow of the offense. He didn't get many because there was no flow to the offense, but he wasn't the one stopping the ball. He still plays a bit too far off of his man on defense when they don't have the ball. He is still in Mike Brown mode there, and who knows if that is even being corrected. On the ball his defense was very good.

OptimusPrime said:

Waiters played very well. He didn't force any shots. He took open shots in the flow of the offense. He didn't get many because there was no flow to the offense, but he wasn't the one stopping the ball. He still plays a bit too far off of his man on defense when they don't have the ball. He is still in Mike Brown mode there, and who knows if that is even being corrected. On the ball his defense was very good.

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I wouldn't say he played "vey well" unless you mean relative to Lebron. I'd be very disappointed if he averaged 10 points a game with his turnovers offsetting his assists and steals. He definitely needs to learn to play without the ball. Standing outside the three-point line and frantically waving his hands to call attention to a teammate across the court is not what playing without the ball means. More positively, I thought he played a lot better defensively last night (as, more surprisingly, did Kyrie). Smith made some tough shots off him, like the jumper from the free throw line.

I think, at least hope, that Dion will evolve into an efficient 15-points-a-game scorer and a lockdown defender. He has the tools physically to be a "very good" basketball player. Whether he has the emotional tools remains a big question, but it seems to me he's growing up.

aaronr said:

I wouldn't say he played "vey well" unless you mean relative to Lebron. I'd be very disappointed if he averaged 10 points a game with his turnovers offsetting his assists and steals. He definitely needs to learn to play without the ball. Standing outside the three-point line and frantically waving his hands to call attention to a teammate across the court is not what playing without the ball means. More positively, I thought he played a lot better defensively last night (as, more surprisingly, did Kyrie). Smith made some tough shots off him, like the jumper from the free throw line.

I think, at least hope, that Dion will evolve into an efficient 15-points-a-game scorer and a lockdown defender. He has the tools physically to be a "very good" basketball player. Whether he has the emotional tools remains a big question, but it seems to me he's growing up.

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He took 9 shots. The ball wasn't leaving the hands of James or Irving, so he wasn't going to get 15 points last night. One of his turnovers was that horrible flop under the rim that would have given him 2 or 3 more points as well. Other than the distance he plays off of his man when they don't have the ball, which we can thank Mike Brown for, I had no complaints with how he played.