Miami Heat: 3 players most likely to be traded in 2018-19
By Simon Smith
2. Dion Waiters
Granted, Waiters is still recovering from season-ending ankle surgery, and thus is no certainty to be fully healthy for the start of this upcoming season. Furthermore, Waiters has maintained a polarizing reputation throughout his six seasons in the league.
However, there are a number of reasons as to why Waiters remains a viable and attractive trade proposition. Firstly, he’s still just 26. Secondly, the most recent stretch of play completed while completely healthy was simply head-turning. In the midst of the Heat’s 30-11 record to finish the 2016-17 season, Waiters compiled a 21-game stretch in which he averaged 19.6 points, 5.1 assists and 3.7 assists while returning a sizzling 46.4 percent shooting clip from long range on 6.0 attempts per game.
Furthermore, while he’s owed $36.3 million over the coming three seasons, this amount is not completely unreasonable when you take into account just what Waiters is capable of producing, such as this performance in January 2017 against the Golden State Warriors:
Put simply, while it’s indisputable that Waiters has been a headache through his various stops in the league, his upside makes one of the most tantalizing trade prospects on the Heat roster.
With shooting guard not the strongest or deepest position in the league, it would be fascinating to see just what the Heat could obtain should be they decide to shop the former Syracuse product.