After his free agency took a dramatic turn in recent weeks, free agent guard Dion Waiters has agreed to a two-year, $6 million deal with the Miami Heat.
In what’s been a wildly surprising offseason for them, the Miami Heat have continued to make noise by bringing in one of the biggest names left in free agency.
First reported by Jon Krawczynski of the Associated Press and later confirmed by Adrian Wojnarowski of The Vertical, the Heat and free agent guard Dion Waiters have mutually agreed on a two-year, $6 million deal.
As Wojnarowski points out, the second year in Waiters’ deal contains a player option for the 2017-18 season.
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For the Heat, bringing in Waiters, especially at the final price both sides agreed to (the Heat signed Waiters using their room mid-level exception of $2.9 million), is a low-risk move for a team that’s suddenly been thrust into a rebuilding situation.
For Waiters, it’s a chance to start fresh and recoup some of the value he’s lost around the league in recent years.
Over his four years in the league, Waiters has struggled to live up to his high lottery pick status after being selected fourth overall by the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2012 NBA Draft.
At the beginning of his time with the Cavaliers, Waiters showed promise as a solid scorer, whether in the starting lineup or off the bench, but the Cavaliers as a whole struggled to make a name for themselves and rise within the Eastern Conference.
After failing to jell with a dramatically different Cavaliers team with LeBron James back in the fold, Waiters was traded to the Oklahoma City Thunder as part of the deal that sent both J.R. Smith and Iman Shumpert to the Cavaliers in the middle of the 2014-15 season.
Of course, Waiters’ struggles carried over in his move to the Thunder and his shooting, in particular, took a plunge as he shot 39 percent from the field and 32 percent from deep in his 47 games with the Thunder in the 2014-15 season.
Adjusting to his new role coming off the bench as a sixth man, Waiters’ three-point shooting increased (Waiters shot 36 percent from three-point range), but he coupled that by averaging a career-low 9.8 points per game last season.
However, Waiters proved to be much more effective during the Thunder’s postseason run last year.
His overall contributions were in line with his regular season output, but Waiters improved his shooting from both the field (42 percent) and beyond the arc (38 percent) and showed promise on the defensive end in the team’s 18 playoff games.
With the Thunder facing their own tumultuous offseason, the team made the surprising move to rescind their qualifying offer to Waiters last week, which turned him into an unrestricted free agent.
Now striking a deal with the Heat, Waiters gets an opportunity to prove himself on a team that’s suddenly looking for a new foundation.
That certainly doesn’t mean Waiters will be able to fill the void left by now-former Heat guard Dwyane Wade and given the deal he has agreed to, there’s no guarantee that he sticks with the team long-term.
But with both the team and Waiters facing questions about their future, it’s a low-risk move that has the potential to work for both sides if everything breaks right.
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Whether that comes to fruition for Waiters specifically is unknown, but he’s getting the chance to prove himself and with a team that’s unexpectedly looking ahead to the future.