Dion Waiters

kevin02 said:

http://www.thunderfans.com/vforum/showthread.php?13136-Time-to-start-Waiters

Don't you guys miss these conversations?

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In Waiter's defense, he is a much better player than OKC's Andre Roberson so that argument holds water. Still, with KD and Westbrook needing their shots, his role is a 6th man scorer.

Happy he is playing well but we will see how long it lasts. If he continues to play efficiently, all we can do is look at ourselves and wonder what we didn't do right...

Cavatt said:

If they said we need you, you are an important part of the team, you will get minutes, he would have played like that here.

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Why assume they didn't say that? I mean, that sounds exactly like what every coach actually did say about him. LBJ himself said that almost word for word.

Terrible job developing Dion. He is going to get a lot better.

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Maybe it was terrible development, but it could also be that Dion decided to "show them" by embracing the reserve role in OKC that he was too proud to embrace here in Cleveland. In other words, it's a change on his end that wasn't going to happen here. If he can keep it up, good for him, though. He could have a really good career as a 6th man, or maybe even as a starting SG if paired with the right PG -- like maybe a (young) Eric Snow type.

Kbiz8288 said:

In Waiter's defense, he is a much better player than OKC's Andre Roberson so that argument holds water. Still, with KD and Westbrook needing their shots, his role is a 6th man scorer.

Happy he is playing well but we will see how long it lasts. If he continues to play efficiently, all we can do is look at ourselves and wonder what we didn't do right...

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I mean the difference to me is clear. Coming into the season we told Waiters we wanted him to be a 3 and D player. When Dion didn't do this (which is not his fault IMO) we benched him so that he could go back to being a scorer off the bench. Even after doing this however, we still had him on a really short leash because we all ready had 3 elite scorers so there was no need for him to play if he was playing poorly on any given night.

In OKC, they currently have 2 elite scorers but still have room for someone to fill in the hole James Harden left a few years ago. Because of this, they are able to give Dion a lot more freedom and let him play through his mistakes.

Edit: Basically, I don't think Dion could have ever been successful here because he would never have gotten the freedom he needs to play to his potential. Even OKC may not be the perfect fit because of Westbrook and Durant but they still have more room for Dion then we did.

Dion is still trying to learn what kind of player he is and how good he can be. It would be unfair for him to have to be a designated to a role limiting his ability to expand his game this early in his career. The perfect situation for him right now would be a team like Philadelphia where they have nothing to lose so they could just let him play. OKC hopefully should at least be sufficient though.

With the thunder albeit in only 138 minutes Dion waiters has a +10.1 on/off per 100 possessions about 4.4 pts/100 better with him on offense and 5.6 pts/100 better on defense

SteelSmack said:

3 point shooting up to 37.5% with OKC. That's with an 0-3 in his first game. Meanwhile J.R. Smith is the "better shooter" and is shooting 33.3% from 3 with the Cavs.

I will say this, though, J.R. takes smarter shots. If Dion just took 3s instead of pullup 2s, he'd be a lot more efficient. But he's also more consistent because he can hit that mid range shot at a decent clip (even though it's still not efficient).

Also, Dion's D is lightyears better than J.R.'s, he mostly stays in front of his man, needs minimal help (which is so underrated by so many here, guys like JR and Kyrie get bigs out of position constantly) and he's averaging 2.0 steals and 0.8 blocks with OKC, continuing his streak of stat stuffing defensive games from the last couple of weeks with the Cavs.

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Light years better on D?

Dion's career DRTG is 110.....Smith's is 108.
Dion's career DBPM is -1.8 ......Smith's is -1.2.

...So there's that.

If people want to keep ignoring the data on Dion have at it. His numbers indicate he's effectively a shorter, slightly worse version of J.R. Smith. The only thing anyone can hang their hat on with him is youth at this point.....but 150+ games in to your NBA career you typically are what you are.

When considering how they compare, it was a no brainer to move Dion given what else is triggered in return (Shump, Mozgov).

With less than a week away from the Return......What do you guys think will be the Q's response to Dion? I'm headed to the game and I'm curious to see what kind of reception he gets from the fans and the team......

I'mWithDan said:

Light years better on D?

Dion's career DRTG is 110.....Smith's is 108.
Dion's career DBPM is -1.8 ......Smith's is -1.2.

...So there's that.

If people want to keep ignoring the data on Dion have at it. His numbers indicate he's effectively a shorter, slightly worse version of J.R. Smith. The only thing anyone can hang their hat on with him is youth at this point.....but 150+ games in to your NBA career you typically are what you are.

When considering how they compare, it was a no brainer to move Dion given what else is triggered in return (Shump, Mozgov).

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So, uh, bringing up the past is great and all, but I don't see how bad Dion was at defense his first 2 years has anything to do with this year. He's a better defender today than JR Smith is, and it's not even close.

Dion passes an eye test on defense that JR doesn't. Also, what are their DRTGs this year? And on their new teams? Yup...

Jig18 said:

With less than a week away from the Return......What do you guys think will be the Q's response to Dion? I'm headed to the game and I'm curious to see what kind of reception he gets from the fans and the team......

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He'll get cheered. The idiots will boo him. I was overly harsh on him, because I wanted Drummond that bad. The fit was never right here; and he probably did think he was better than Kyrie.

Dion still had MAJOR mental lapses, and he's not ready yet to be a championship caliber player. That's why I just don't understand why OKC would want him when they already have Jeremy Lamb who can't quite figure it out.

Meh. Want to know the v immediate difference? The Thunder have leadership. Durant n Westbrook run the team. They have taken Dion in under their wing. I have to guess that Dion also respects them more than he did Kylie, thus why he can take a supposed back seat (his shot attempts still high right) and find a groove. Problem here was part coaching, part team makeup.

SteelSmack said:

So, uh, bringing up the past is great and all, but I don't see how bad Dion was at defense his first 2 years has anything to do with this year. He's a better defender today than JR Smith is, and it's not even close.

Dion passes an eye test on defense that JR doesn't. Also, what are their DRTGs this year? And on their new teams? Yup...

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Not even sure why I am responding to this. You're trying to use a 5 game sample size to disprove data over the course of several YEARS.

Both guys are below average defenders....all their metrics support this. They're similar offensively and similar defensively. Smith is just a better fit given his length and catch and shoot statistics.

There may be a time when Dion becomes a better individual player but there was something "off" about how he ultimately fit in to our roster. The sooner people accept this, the sooner everyone can move on. For teams with more talent, fit far outweighs pure individual skill. The further you get down the pecking order (past LBJ, KI and KL) the more it has to be taken in to consideration.

I'mWithDan said:

Not even sure why I am responding to this. You're trying to use a 5 game sample size to disprove data over the course of several YEARS.

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SteelSmack said:

Also, what are their DRTGs this year?

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5 games?

SteelSmack said:

5 games?

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Dion's defensive rating this season, with Cleveland, was 109, pretty much on par with his career average.

The league average typically fluctuates from around 103 to 107.

You're trying to argue about who is better between two below average defenders. I don't understand why it matters?

There's probably an argument in there that Waiters sucks less but you're treating it as him being a valuable defender, which he is not.

I'mWithDan said:

Dion's defensive rating this season, with Cleveland, was 109, pretty much on par with his career average.

The league average typically fluctuates from around 103 to 107.

You're trying to argue about who is better between two below average defenders. I don't understand why it matters?

There's probably an argument in there that Waiters sucks less but you're treating it as him being a valuable defender, which he is not.

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Not that it matters much, but basketball reference has him at 108 on the season in DRTG. And J.R.'s? You conveniently didn't mention his 112 DTRG on the season, which is atrocious.

Also, I don't really care about a mostly meaningless stat when we're talking about a guy that's put in effort for about a month on that end. When Dion is giving effort on D, he's a far better than average defender. The eye test right now says something completely different than what DTRG says for his career (or even this season for that matter).

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SteelSmack said:

Not that it matters much, but basketball reference has him at 108 on the season in DRTG. And J.R.'s? You conveniently didn't mention his 112 DTRG on the season, which is atrocious.

Also, I don't really care about a mostly meaningless stat when we're talking about a guy that's put in effort for about a month on that end. When Dion is giving effort on D, he's a far better than average defender. The eye test right now says something completely different than what DTRG says for his career (or even this season for that matter).

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Your eyes tell you something every advanced stat does not. Got it. Now we can all move on.