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Oklahoma City Thunder: Dion Waiters Finding His Groove

By Gerald Bourguet

Oct 18, 2015; Oklahoma City, OK, USA; Oklahoma City Thunder guard Dion Waiters (3) reacts after a making a three point shot against the Denver Nuggets during the second quarter at Chesapeake Energy Arena. Mandatory Credit: Mark D. Smith-USA TODAY Sports
Oct 18, 2015; Oklahoma City, OK, USA; Oklahoma City Thunder guard Dion Waiters (3) reacts after a making a three point shot against the Denver Nuggets during the second quarter at Chesapeake Energy Arena. Mandatory Credit: Mark D. Smith-USA TODAY Sports /
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Dion Waiters has long been the punchline of a bad NBA joke. As the fourth pick in the 2012 NBA Draft, Waiters’ time with the Cleveland Cavaliers was viewed as a letdown, a waste of a top-5 pick.

Despite averaging double-digits in every season he’s been in the league, Waiters’ career 41.4 field goal percentage and 32.6 three-point percentage indicate that it takes him an inefficiently high number attempts to get his points. After three years in the league, it’s become blatantly obvious that Waiters’ calling in the NBA will need to be far closer to sixth man than the MVP role he’s envisioned for himself.

And yet, there’s a third possibility based on what we’ve seen from his time with the Oklahoma City Thunder — that of a most improved player.

Not Dion Waiters will win the Most Improved Player of the Year Award in 2015-16, but the point still stands: Waiters may finally have the chance to shed the ball hog labels that have literally become synonymous with his name.

In 47 games and 20 starts with the Thunder last season, Waiters had some trouble adjusting to his new team for awhile. He averaged 12.7 points per game, but it took him 12.9 field goal attempts to get him there since he shot a career low 39.2 percent from the field. Any time your field goal attempts are higher than your scoring output, you’re doing something wrong.

And yet, if you’ve been paying close attention, you’d see that after a very bumpy start, Waiters found a better fit for his talents in OKC. Over the last 18 games of the season, Waiters started and played the best basketball of his NBA career, averaging 15.3 points per game on 41 percent shooting (37 percent from downtown).

That might be as good as it gets for a gunner like Waiters, but based on his time in the preseason, perhaps it’s okay for the Thunder to be cautiously optimistic about hoping for more.

Through five preseason contests, Waiters is averaging 12.8 points, 3.8 rebounds and 3.2 assists per game while shooting 46.9 percent from the field and 43.8 percent from the three-point line. That’s an admittedly small sample size, and it’s tempting to label this as another piece of preseason hype that will revert back to the norm once the regular season starts.

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But this isn’t quite Julius Randle saying Draymond Green can’t guard him either. This is a possible indicator of things to come, something to back up why Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and the rest of the team swears by Dion Waiters.

This is the reason the Thunder might be working out a contract extension before the Nov. 2 deadline arrives and he becomes a restricted free agent, and it’s a damn significant one. If Kevin Durant, who becomes an unrestricted free agent next summer, says he likes playing with Dion Waiters, then by golly, the Thunder had better do their best to keep him around and keep KD happy.

But in regards to Waiters himself, the biggest reason to buy into this preseason hype is the fact that he seems to have changed his all-around approach to the game:

This may seem like a trivial thing, but Waiters taking on a more team-oriented role and being a playmaker off the bench is a huge adjustment to his game that will only make the Thunder’s offense that much deadlier under Billy Donovan.

Waiters has scored very efficiently in his 21.6 minutes per game of preseason action, sure, but he’s also been looking for open teammates and passing up some of the bad shots that have plagued him so far in his young career. If he’s ready to be a team player, it just might unlock the door to being a more efficient scorer as well.

From the calling for ball jokes to the reputation he’s developed for yelling “And one!” every time he’s fouled, Dion Waiters still has a long road ahead of him to prove he’s more than the chemistry problem that unlocked the Cleveland Cavaliers’ success simply by being traded away. Many people still question general manager Sam Presti’s decision to trade for him last year, and depending on the contract extension he’s given, that move will only become more scrutinized.

However, Waiters also has the chance to redeem himself in 2015-16. If he can play anywhere near this newfound level of restraint and efficiency, he could very well change the public perception and finally become what he’s wanted to be all along: a significant contributor on a winning team.

Next: NBA: Top 10 MVP Candidates In 2015-16

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