Oklahoma City Thunder: Will Dion Waiters Find His Niche?

One of the surprise trades of last season was the Oklahoma City Thunder acquiring Dion Waiters from the Cleveland Cavaliers.

The Thunder essentially didn’t give up anything to get Waiters, the No. 4 overall pick in the 2012 NBA Draft. And Waiters isn’t just any fourth overall draft pick. He comes with baggage and that’s why the Thunder got him for nothing.

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You can still see why someone would take a chance on the talent Waiters has. He wouldn’t be the first NBA player to repair his reputation thanks to a change of scenery. When he arrived in OKC, Waiters was very happy with the chance. He was happy that the Thunder wanted him to be himself and didn’t want him to worry about fitting in, something that looked like an issue for him in Cleveland.

It showed on the floor, but that wasn’t always a good thing. His defensive intensity was certainly a bright spot and when he did good things, they’d often looked really good. He was compared to Dwyane Wade coming out of college for a reason. He shows flashes of Flash, but they’re just usually gone before you realize it.

After a little over half a season with the franchise, is Waiters capable of turning it around and finding his niche in OKC? Last year certainly doesn’t make anyone feel better about that possibility.

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Ultimately, Waiters’ numbers with the Thunder were really the worst of his career so far. He shot 39.2 percent from the field, 31.9 percent from three and his 10.1 PER was the lowest of his career. He also posted career-lows in assist percentage — 0.8 in OKC compared to 18.4 and 18.2 his first two seasons in Cleveland — and even usage percentage — down from around 26 his first two seasons to just 21.7 with the Thunder.

It gets worse when you look more closely at his shooting.

At the rim, he was the worst he’d ever been shooting 48.0 percent, under 50 percent for the first time in his career. With Cleveland earlier that season he was shooting 55.6 percent at the rim.

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It felt like a lot of times that Waiters was freelancing and his teammates didn’t know what he was doing. He’d force a ton of shots, even for him, and the lack of spacing that the Thunder offense was known for didn’t do him any favors.

Waiters’ reputation of dribbling too much is very evident in the numbers as well. The criticism is consistent with the results. When he shot the ball with 4-0 seconds left on the shot clock, he posted an effective field goal percentage of 21.7. With no time on the shot clock, the percentage dropped to 21.4. At any other time in the shot clock, his eFG% was above 40 and it was in the 50s when he shot early on.

The more he dribbled, the lower his percentages as well. With zero, one or two dribbles, his numbers were fine at 50.3, 44.9 and 47.8 eFG%, respectively. When taking 3-6 dribbles (accounting for 28.0 percent of his shots) his eFG% was 33.6. When he took 7-plus dribbles it was 39.8 percent.

The numbers really back up the problems in Waiters’ game. And overall, his real plus-minus was really poor among shooting guards at -3.52 (-2.35 offensive, -1.17 defensive). Compare that to Anthony Morrow, who was often on the bench while Waiters got run, and you see a big problem. Morrow ranked 12th among SGs at 2.76 (2.33 offensive, 0.43 defensive).

One thing that may surprise and makes Waiters not look as bad is that the Thunder were a net-positive with him on the floor. They outscored opponents by 2.5 points per 100 possessions with him out there, a number that is not as good as the team has been in the past but at least isn’t a negative. They were a better rebounding team and played faster with Waiters in, but expectedly were a worse passing team and turned the ball over more with him out there.

While the change of scenery may have appeared to be a positive for Waiters individually, the extra freedom he was given and the new setting in Scott Brooks’ offense didn’t help him much. He was flat-out less productive. Excuses can be made and the injury ones are valid. More minutes alongside Kevin Durant will help anyone.

At the end of the day, there’s nothing that shows that asking Waiters to do more is a good thing. Can he be an energy guy off the bench that tries hard on defense and has his moments at the other end? I think so. Healthy, that’s probably what he will be for the Thunder.

With the shooting guard depth shallow and the starting 2-guard spot up for grabs, it will be interesting to see what Billy Donovan does with Waiters.

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