You guys are too busy looking at shooting percentages to see that Dion is growing over at OKC and ignoring that a similar style veteran in Cleveland is starting and the team is having success.
This is where I would disagree.
I still like Dion and think he can grow into a player that has an important role on a winning team.
But three major style differences separate current day veteran JR Smith from current day Dion Waiters.
1. JR, on this team, will attempt to play good defense regardless of whether his shot is falling or if the ball is coming to him. And if he slips on doing that, we also picked up Shumpert who excels at perimeter D
2. JR takes lots of shots like Dion but the vast majority of his shots are catch and shoot in the flow of the offense. He dribbles around into shots far less than Dion did. He is less of a ball stopper than Dion was. He doesn't create as many dribble drive opportunities as Dion did, but we have no shortage of those via LeBron and Kyrie. JR provides a better/more complentary skill set in that regard for OUR roster, whereas Dion while talented, a lot of what he provided was already done better by LeBron and Kyrie
3. JR has always been and likely will always be a superior 3 pt shooter in both raw stats and reputation, which affects how the defense plays us in a positive way.
You say that people are ignoring positive strides that Dion is making in Oklahoma but what do you expect. At this point Dion has zero to do with the Cavaliers. Do you think that Cavs fans are going to log on to FirstRow or Ballstreams to watch every OKC game? No. All most Cavs fans will do is check the raw stats and see that Dion's overall shooting % has gone down from 40% with the Cavs to 38% with OKC and his 3P% has remained the same at a horrid 25%
None of that is meant as a knock on Dion for the long term. I personally still have an interest in seeing how he does over his career but seeing as he's no longer a Cleveland Cavalier, how many other Cavs fans do you honestly expect to have the same outlook or do anything more than look at the raw stats and percentages?