The Dion Waiters Zone — Updated

Dion Waiters has been one of the more interesting human beings to follow since he was drafted.  Out of Syracuse he was billed as a talented scorer with as much upside as anyone not named Anthony Davis, and was favorably compared to Dwyane Wade (by both Chad Ford and Byron Scott).  Former Cavs: The Blog editor and friend Colin McGowan anagrammatically foretold the coming of “Saint Weirdo” in a post-draft prophesy, and Waiters has mostly fulfilled the moniker.

His brashness strikes me as a defense mechanism—it’s what allows him the single-mindedness that makes him great at basketball—and when it’s punctured, he retreats inward. I think that’s what happened at SU: Boeheim shouted him down a few times, and Waiters didn’t initially respond well because he felt naked and embarrassed.

Of course, Colin says “initially” because Waiters did respond to Boeheim.

He came back to Syracuse in the fall of 2011 leaner and no longer caring whether he started or came off the bench. His minutes went up from 16 per game as a freshman to 24 as a sophomore. His points went from 6.6 to 12.6, rebounds from 1.6 to 2.3 and assists from 1.5 to 2.5. Most importantly his attitude was tremendous. He smiled and he cheered his teammates and had a great time on the court.

Boeheim had only positive things to say about Waiters when offering up his own scouting report including this nugget, harkening back to Dion’s eventual willingness to come off the bench and evolution into a team-first player.

In the NBA, you have be able to co-exist with other great players. Dion’s already done that.

In some ways the interview served to quell the pre-draft critics who referred to Dion as a “bench player” at Syracuse.

Back to Colin’s Anticipation of Saint Weirdo.  He pondered: “I wonder if […] Waiters has learned to treat criticism as a tool rather than an affront.”

This has been a near constant theme with Waiters since he donned the wine and gold.  He was benched by Byron Scott early in his rookie season and he responded well.  By the end of his rookie season the biggest criticism of Dion was his egregious shot selection.  If you followed this blog then, you know it was a significant topic of conversation.  It carried over into the start of his sophomore season.  Once again, Dion was benched early in the season, this time by Mike Brown. From Jason Lloyd:

When Brown informed Waiters he was moving to the bench last season, it triggered a bizarre sequence of events that included Waiters suddenly becoming ill and missing a couple days of practice.

His frustration apparently boiled over in a players-only meeting where it is reported he lashed out at Kyrie and Tristan for playing “buddy ball” and freezing him out.  The Cavs were rumored to have been shopping Dion aggressively leading up to the trade deadline.  Perhaps Lloyd provided the most balanced insight into the Waiters dilemma when he wrote in mid-January:

This isn’t to pile on Waiters or put all the blame on him, but his behavior was the most evident tonight and the whispers from other players growing tired of his act seem to be growing louder. Again, it’s more of a frustration because overall he’s not a bad guy. It would be different if he was causing major strife within the locker room. He’s not. He’s just drawing a lot of eye rolls.

Waiters was not traded, and as the winter turned to spring he gradually improved his shooting percentages and his assist numbers.  He was re-inserted into the starting lineup when Kyrie Irving missed time with injuries, and upon Irving’s return they stayed in the starting lineup together.  They both played outstanding (together for once) in a double-digit win over the Magic, and many expected this to be the new script in the Irving/Waiters relationship narrative. Waiters admitted to the locker room incident earlier in the season, in an apparent attempt to put the issue behind everyone.

But, it was not to be.  Josh Gordon (of all people) said the following in early April on First Take: (note the present tense)

“I talked about it with Dion. He’s my neighbor in my building so we hang out all the time,” Gordon said. “I’m aware of the rift in the locker room. That’s just alpha males and supreme athletes trying to share the spotlight.”

This coincided with a (somewhat surprising to us at C:tB) dramatic reaction to an interview that our own Robert Attenweiler conducted with Brian Windhorst where Windhorst described both Irving and Waiters as being immature.

The Cavs had clawed their way to within striking distance of the Eastern Conference Playoffs and then lost four of their final six.  Questions remained regarding Waiters’ fit on the team.  The Cavs struggled mightily when he and Kyrie shared the court.  There were some improvements, however, as Waiters: 1.) Significantly improved his three point FG%, 2.) Cut his long twos in half, and 3.) Raised his FG% on his mid-range game and took more controlled, more balanced jumpers.  Waiters even shot 40% on catch and shoot corner 3s, which no one would have expected coming out of college.

So he responded to the shooting criticisms very well.  As the fate of the young core players faded behind the supernova that was LeBron’s Homecoming, the only hint that Waiters had a future in Cleveland was LeBron’s letter:

I think I can help elevate Tristan Thompson and Dion Waiters.

Conspicuously absent were Anthony Bennett and newly minted Andrew Wiggins.  They were dealt; Waiters and Thompson remain.  LeBron noticed that Waiters absorbed the brunt of the criticism for the Cavs failing to meet expectations the previous season, and in a show of solidarity said:

I told him on every team there’s a guy that they want to kind of place the blame on and it would be Dion on our team. I told him you can’t get involved in that or what people say about you. It’s not what people think of you, it’s about what you think of yourself. The only way to re-write the notion of, ‘Can Dion fit in this?’ is to play the right way and to dominate his opposition every single night. That’s all he should worry about.”

Waiters, for his part, tweeted that he wouldn’t come off the bench.  Then he deleted the tweet, laughing it off and saying that he’s all about the team.  Then he took exception with Bradley Beal proclaiming the Wall/Beal backcourt to be the best young backcourt in the NBA.  Wall hit Waiters right where he’s most vulnerable: “You gotta start first.”  A shot across the bow like this would appear to be of no consequence to many basketball junkies, or even a badge of honor for a player on the Spurs.  To Waiters, this was more akin to calling a person struggling with an eating disorder “fat”.

Of course, Waiters wasn’t going to take Wall’s comments lying down…

Men lie women lie BUCKETS DNT RT @H2da_IZZOO: @Me_University @dionwaiters3 http://t.co/HPmgsVcK15 #BUCKETS

— Philly Cheese 🧀 (@dionwaiters3) October 1, 2014

Waiters spent the summer indicating that he was watching film of Dwyane Wade to be the best complement possible to LeBron.  And then the season started and he looked the opposite of that.  He refused to move without the ball, took every opportunity possible to dribble-dribble-launch, and was benched for the entirety of crunch time against the Bulls in which Matthew Dellavedova took his place.

https://twitter.com/netw3rk/status/528355178442158080

Dellavedova emerged from his crunch time endeavor against the Blazers with an injured MCL.  With no Delly it may have seemed obvious that Waiters was going to play more minutes whether Coach David Blatt was comfortable with it or not.  And that’s not at all what happened.  Blatt actually removed Dion Waiters from the starting lineup prior to Wednesday night’s game against the Jazz.  For the third time in three years, Waiters was benched before New Year’s Day for his poor play.  There might not be much in common between Byron Scott, Mike Brown, and David Blatt.  But apparently they all come from the Boeheim School of Waiters Management.

To those just tuning in to the Cavaliers, what happened next raised some eyebrows.  Waiters was conspicuously absent from all the pre-game festivities, including the player introductions and the National Anthem.

Dion Waiters is not even out there with his teammates. He has not come from the locker room and the #Cavs intros are over with.

— Chris Haynes (@ChrisBHaynes) November 6, 2014

To those familiar with Dion Waiters, this tweet was troubling but not particularly surprising.  It nested comfortably into a pattern, going all the way back to his freshman year at Syracuse.  While there could have been any explanation (digestive issues or unforeseen medical treatment) most fans gravitated towards Waiters reputation, that is, he was probably upset at being benched.

To add insult to injury, Waiters saw just 13 minutes of action despite only eight Cavaliers playing at all.  After the game, Waiters said, “I’ve been through it my first two years.  Gotta do whatever is best for the team.”  Blatt, for his part, indicated that swapping Waiters with Shawn Marion for defensive purposes wasn’t going to be his new secret sauce -“It didn’t work” he said.

To follow Waiters is to know how frustrated he must have been following the episode in Utah.  There is no possible way that he was OK being in that situation.  Credit him for being prepared with a positive sound bite and playing the part of unselfish role-player in the post-game interview.  Now, for some incredibly salient foreshadowing, back to Colin’s Anticipation of Saint Weirdo.

There’s an authoritarianism in sports—it’s less prevalent in the NBA than in, say, the NFL, but it’s still present—that transforms most players into dutiful cogs. I’m not complaining about this so much as remarking upon it; some players need outside structure and discipline in order to fulfill their potential, and the basketball equivalent of a Peter Brotzmann record would be unwatchable. But there’s something thrilling about when a player wriggles free of the constraints imposed upon him by the structure of organized sports.

And that leads us to the present.  What could be a more symbolic rejection of “authoritarianism in sports” than defiantly protesting the National Anthem?  Men lie women lie Francis Scott Key lies, BUCKETS DNT.

Before the game against the Denver Nuggets, Waiters was asked by Plain Dealer beat writer Chris Haynes why he missed the National Anthem in Utah, at least, according to Haynes:

Waiters informed Northeast Ohio Media Group that he is a Muslim and that’s the reason he excused himself prior to the national anthem.

“It’s because of my religion,” Waiters told NEOMG. “That’s why I stayed in the locker room.”

Waiters says he is rededicating himself more to his Muslim faith. He appears to be in a happier state.

This “revelation” spread like wildfire among NBA fans following on twitter.  Predictably, it became a political proxy war.  What was interesting is that everyone assumed it to be true.  That is, that Dion Waiters chose to excuse himself from the National Anthem because of Islam.  Never mind that this was the first time many people were even made aware Dion Waiters is a Muslim.  (I can’t find any mention of Dion Waiters being a practicing Muslim prior to this story.)

Then, in what should have been a huge red flag, Waiters actually was present for the National Anthem and player introductions in Denver.  Just minutes after Haynes’ story broke on cleveland.com.  Haynes tweeted about it and later updated his original story to include:

The guard, however, did stand with his team during Friday’s national anthem before they faced the Denver Nuggets. Maybe he’s selective with it.

He’s “selective” with it?  At any rate, most ignored the strangeness of the whole thing and focused on broadcasting opinions about: avoiding the National Anthem for religious reasons.  And if CavsTwitter was entranced by The Dion Waiters Zone, what hope did outsiders with a headline have?  (If you haven’t made an outrageously ignorant comment about Muslims or obnoxiously declared your solidarity for Dion’s courageous display of religious conviction – you may have missed your chance.)

New goal: get Dion to be more “selective” with his shot selection.

Seemingly unaware of the boiling cauldron that had been stirred up, Dion played well.  After cruising to a huge lead, the Cavs let their foot off the gas in the fourth quarter.  The Nuggets fought back to make it a two possession game with a whole four and a half minutes left to play.  The Cavs were reeling, and their previous two possessions ended in a “why not” three from LeBron that barely hit the rim, and a turnover by Kevin Love on an out of control spin move.  Things were getting dicey, and the Denver crowd had come alive.  But on the next defensive stand, Waiters anticipated a pass, stole the ball, and flew in for the uncontested dunk.  On the next possession, he splashed a 20 footer, putting the Cavs up double digits and really, breaking the spirit of the Nuggets.

It was a great bounce back game.  He scored 17 points in 24 minutes, added 2 steals, and generally played the role the Cavs need.  He defended aggressively throughout and generally worked to get LeBron and Kyrie in optimal scoring situations when he shared the floor with them.  And he stepped into a big jumper when the rest of the Cavaliers were out of sync and looking gassed.

He was all smiles after the game.  In his post-game courtside interview he seemed pleased with the game and talked about being excited to get home to play with his son.

Later on, Haynes tweeted:

Dion Waiters refused to expound on his Muslim faith: "I don't really want to talk about that, my religion..I want to talk about basketball."

— Chris Haynes (@ChrisBHaynes) November 8, 2014

But people were talking about it.  A lot of people.  In the early morning, Waiters signed on Twitter, and the other shoe dropped.

https://twitter.com/dionwaiters3/status/531087999287558144

https://twitter.com/dionwaiters3/status/531088381149577216

https://twitter.com/dionwaiters3/status/531089368820113408

https://twitter.com/dionwaiters3/status/531090500992782337

Haynes refused to walk it back.

Dion, why did you miss the national anthem on Wednesday: "It's because of my religion. That's why I stayed in the locker room."

— Chris Haynes (@ChrisBHaynes) November 8, 2014

So here we are.

I expect that in the coming days there will be some sort of closure.  Regardless of his faith or how it manifests itself, it seems that (from his stream of twitter consciousness) he wants everyone to realize two things: 1.) He loves America and has no intention of avoiding her National Anthem, and 2.) The Media is to blame.*

If you’ve followed Waiters’ career, this episode is strikingly similar to every other time he moved from starter to wearing a scarlet letter ‘B’.  Each time he has lashed out in some way.  It seems so much more likely that Waiters was unhappy, and his avoidance of the pre-game introductions and National Anthem (no matter what reason he gave the coaches) was an acting out of his frustration. The puzzlingly few minutes he received in that game may have been a punishment for that act of immaturity.  This is just a theory, but it would line up perfectly with the chronicled history of Dion Waiters.

For some people, either reality would signal a need for the Cavs to cut ties with Waiters.  He has been the player most often identified in trade rumors and there’s two years of data demonstrating that the Cavs suffer when he and Kyrie share the court.  Maybe he’s more drama than he’s worth, the argument goes.  But there is a complimentary story that runs parallel with this one, and one that I expect to be writing about in a few weeks.  Each time Waiters has been benched, he’s responded in a positive way.  Every. Single. Time.  He’s shown a resiliency during his time in a Cavs uniform.  If you’ve followed closely, it’s been impossible to miss.  And, I believe it’s happening again:

In this season of sacrifice, where certain players have to forfeit certain parts of their game, sources within the Cavaliers have made it clear they want Waiters to put an emphasis on defense and catch-and-shoot 3-pointers this season.

So Waiters stayed after the team’s morning shootaround Wednesday in Portland and spent an extra 40 minutes working on catch-and-shoot 3-pointers.

For Dion Waiters to add value to this Cavalier team, he needs to occupy a role that is complementary to LeBron, Kyrie, and Love.  David Blatt is asking his players to “be a star within your role”.  For Waiters, at various times, the team has explicitly said that he needs to be a plus defender.  Behind the scenes they have asked him to play off the ball and excel as a spot up shooter.  I expect Waiters’ resiliency to kick in and for him to embrace this, even if he doesn’t like it.

Yet when asked about it, he denied anyone with the team telling him to focus on that and added that’s not his strength despite analytics numbers from last season that say otherwise.

“That’s not my game,” he said. “I can do it, but you know what I’m effective at: pick-and-roll and things like that.”

Dion Waiters is wearing a rubber bracelet around his wrist that has "I am who I am" printed on it. Sounds about right.

— Dave McMenamin (@mcten) November 8, 2014

The key to any good marriage is compromise.  What the Cavs can do to encourage Waiters’ evolution is to praise his unselfishness, talk at length about how he could “easily be dropping 30”, and at times, turn the reins over to him.  They don’t want him completely reduced to a static offensive player anyway – he’s got the ability to tilt the scales of a game when he enters his own “D-Waiters Zone”.  Take us home, Colin:

What most compelling teams have (OKC, Miami, Boston, the Lakers) is a chaos element (Westbrook, LeBron, Rondo, Kobe) upon which their success often hinges. I think Dion Waiters can be the Cavaliers’ chaos element. He will shoot the team in and out of games. He will preen and sulk and clash with authority. He won’t always be what Byron Scott, his teammates, or the fans want him to be. As the song goes, “No one in the world ever gets what they want, and that is beautiful.” Dion Waiters can embody that sentiment; be strange and frustrating like Madge Gill, Gucci Mane, Robert Downey Sr. and lots of other people worth loving. He’ll take the circuitous route to greatness or failure or J.R. Smith-like purgatory. Our very own Saint Weirdo. Welcome to Cleveland, Dion.

*The Cavs seem to have a very antagonistic relationship with the media right now.  I fully believe that there was a (healthy) verbal confrontation between LeBron and Kyrie the other day.  LeBron even had a dumb smirk on his face as he told a group of reporters that, no, not true, reporters wanting headlines and all that.  And now I assume Dion fired back with “my religion” as some kind of “get off my back” kind of response.  Or maybe trying to be coy.  After all the drama last season I’d hoped some professional maturity would set in, but maybe not.

— Update

Chris Haynes and Dion had a discussion about their discussion… Apparently, Dion missed the National Anthem in Portland because he was meditating and praying. When Haynes asked him if he he was going to continue his “pre-game ritual,” Dion said “yes.” Haynes thought he was talking about missing the anthem. Dion thought he was talking about meditation and prayer. They’re now calling it a “simple miscommunication.” Huh.

— Update #2

[From Dave McMenamin]

“I went in the back for my normal routine that I normally do and it just happened to take longer than what I expected,” Waiters said. “I missed [the anthem] one time and, you know, this happened. So I’m not worried about it.”

Waiters would not provide further detail on what his normal routine consists of, other than to say it does not involve his religion.

“I’m not praying,” Waiters said. “I’m not praying. I’m going through my routine. It has nothing to do with religion when I go back there.”

Soooo…not prayer and meditation. Whatever.