Dion Waiters Traded

[Caffegy]

Do not trade Waiters, you do not want to end up like Miami Heat where nobody on that bench could create their own shot.

 

[crabbyshark]

Great game from Dion. I really want to see this type of energy from him every game though. It's all rainbows and gumdrops today, but the next time he has a bad game there's going to be a ton of trade posts again (possibly for me too).

The trade posts would be an emotional response to a bad game.

Here is a thread from the Golden State RealGM board from beginning of last season on Klay Thompson: link

From the first post:

My feelings towards Klay has been all over the place since his rookie season but I am extremely impressed by his game so far. You can tell that he really put in work this off season to improve. I used to think he was just a streaky 3 point shooter who made bone headed decisions but the guy is shooting 3's efficiently, playing great defense, driving to the basket more and displaying an arsenal of new post moves.

It takes patience and ideally a consistent system to develop players.

The Bulls and the Spurs prove you can develop players while competing for championships.

 

[Simon]

From The Bullshit Whisperer in his article this morning....

3. Dion Waiters scored 21 points off the bench for the Cavs in that game, and his name was linked to some of those reports involving Kofous. But contrary to semi-popular belief, the Cavs have not been shopping Waiters.

 

[Dylan Windler's Mom]

How do you know he has a better attitude? If you read the Wolves forums they are complaining about his attitude. His eFG% is pure awful.

Wiggins has bad body language? That damn cancerous inefficient chucker, trade him now!!!!

 

[TitleTown]

Do not trade Waiters, you do not want to end up like Miami Heat where nobody on that bench could create their own shot.

Yeah, they were so unsuccessful

 

[Caffegy]

Yeah, they were so unsuccessful

Miami where top heavy and very flawed team. Look at teams like the Spurs, every year they had guys like Gary Neal, Patty Mills who can flat out score off the bench and create their own shot.

 

[kovanovich]

for the life of me cant understand why people want to dump Dion for a big slow stiff who can block shots. Maybe we should call Minn to see whether we can have Wiggins if we give them Dion. Not clear at all to me which player has better upside. I do know that Dion has a better PER as the 4th option on our team than Wiggins does as the featured rook on their team. I would like to see how the PER of dion and the sainted Bradley Beal at the end of the season.

People want to trade him because he is a high volume, low efficiency scorer, who does little aside from scoring (which he doesn't do well) to help the team much. If you are concerned for his "upside," well, players who start their careers the way he has rarely turn out to be good players -- that is, players who have meaningful roles on a championship level team. I won't even address his attitude.

The reason they are interested in trading him for a "slow stiff" is that the "slow stiff" actually does some things that help a team win games and potentially fits a need on this team.

I get more motivated to trade Dion after he has a good game or two. I mean, if his value really varies that much over the course of a game or two. Why would I trade him after one of his many bad games? You sell high, not low. Let's hope that the team is good enough for Blatt to play him consistent minutes and he at least is able to score some.

 

[AZCavs]

Dion is at least trending in the correct direction. He's shooting a relatively efficient 48.4 percent from the field in his last eight games, despite still struggling from long range. I can't give you a figure of assist percentage for that timeframe, but it's been above 25 percent for four of those games while doing a decent (but still somewhat inconsistent) job of taking care of the ball (He went about 60 minutes straight between the NO, Charlotte and ATL games without turning the ball over once).

He still has some bad habits to break and his long distance shooting needs to come back around, but he's been playing better as of late and the best case scenario is not trade him, but keep him and hope he continues to improve on both ends of the floor.

Having an instant offense spark plug off the bench would do wonders for the Cavs in the postseason.

 

[catfish]

What seems like fact to me is that if Dion is playing at the top of his game this team is not losing to anyone. We certainly wish that he played at the top of his game more but he has some unique skills to be able to blow a game wide open that most players dont have

 

[crabbyshark]

players who start their careers the way he has rarely turn out to be good players

What is your evidence for this?

Waiters http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/w/waitedi01.html
DeRozan http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/d/derozde01.html
Thompson http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/t/thompkl01.html
Butler http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/b/butleji01.html
Bledsoe http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/b/bledser01.html

 

[scopedog]

for the life of me cant understand why people want to dump Dion for a big slow stiff who can block shots.

Because we really do need a big guy who can protect the rim. We can't play like Miami and expect to win, there are too many mismatches and people who are never gonna be as good at defense as some of the regulars from that team. You either need a big man putting the smack down on people, or you need to be able to stop the opponent from getting to the rim in the first place at times. We have a size disadvantage and 2 of our best players aren't really good at defense, unlike Bosh and Wade.

The thing is the only 2 guys who really have any potential value that I can see us willing to trade are Dion and TT. And if we did trade those 2 for a big man, we'd just have more holes in our bench, especially if we can't pick up Ray Allen or another good free agent...

Seems to me like we're probably gonna be 1-2 pieces away from being a real contender until next year when we can use Haywood's contract. So I guess that's that.

 

[chuck0609]

How do you know he has a better attitude? If you read the Wolves forums they are complaining about his attitude. His eFG% is pure awful.

Yes Dion has always been praised for having a great attitude, going back to his college days.
You think he just gets a bad wrap? Com'on

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

Do not trade Waiters, you do not want to end up like Miami Heat where nobody on that bench could create their own shot.

That wasn't their problem. Their problem was that they were left with only one shot-creator period when Wade started falling apart. And losing Miller -- who was not a shot-creator -- really hurt their bench scoring. They also lacked strength down low, etc..

This Cavs were on a roll without Dion contributing because they have three guys who could take over in terms of scoring. Sure, in an ideal world, having a great creator off the bench is nice. But it's not close to a necessity when one of your starters who can create shots is playing with the bench crew anyway.

What is killing us is the combination of 1) no rim protector and 2) weak perimeter defense. You can perhaps survive without one of those, but not without both. And Dion solves neither problem. So we need either 1) a genuine rim protector, or 2) a long, plus defender at the 2. And Dion is one of the best assets we have to fill one of those holes.

When Dion plays poorly, the argument is "we can't trade him because we won't get value." And when he plays well, it becomes "we can't trade him because he's playing well." It's "heads I win/tails you lose", but without squarely addressing the underlying point of whether he should be traded for reasons of fit.

 

[catfish]

Dion gives us the ability to blow out teams when we face their second unit. Do not trade Dion. Dion has not been playing poorly. He just played up to his potential last game. In the game before when so much was made of fact he didnt play in second half it was when he was on floor in first half that team siezed the lead.

 

[Matches]

Dion has not been playing poorly. He just played up to his potential last game.

If he only just played up to his potential the last game, how can you say he hasn't been playing poorly? Both sentences cannot be true. The team would be 20-6 if the "full potential Dion Waiters" showed up every game.