Waiters takes on weighty online issues
BOSTON — Dion Waiters has had trouble holding down food the past few days, but said there never should be concern that he again will be packing on pounds.
Having re-sculpted his physique last season after signing with the Miami Heat, Waiters took umbrage Tuesday at the notion that he is playing at a heavier weight this season, saying he was dressed in layers when a photo was taken of him during the Heat’s recent trip for a game in Mexico City.
“I think Pat Riley would have said something to me by now,” he said with a smile, with the Heat president rewarding Waiters with a four-year, $52 million contract in the offseason in the wake of Waiters’ physical makeover. “You know they’re going off that picture that I took in Mexico where I had two layers. I had this on with a warm-up and a T-shirt underneath.
“Where’s the strengthand-conditioning coach? I’ve got 6 percent body fat. I’m 219. Last year I was 225, 223, playing the way I was playing. I’m lighter. You know if I was [heavier] there would be a bunch of red flags everywhere right? I ain’t got to post no pictures on Instagram to prove it to nobody. I’m in the best shape of my life. They don’t say it when I’m dunking.”
Waiters said he found the social-media conjecture amusing.
“I heard it,” he said. “But when you let them see that, it just tells them they’re winning. I don’t need to prove nothing to them. It would have come from the higher ups. Pat Riley, he would have been addressing. Man, I’m 6 percent body fat, 219 [pounds]. The lightest I’ve been. Man, I feel great.
“That picture, sometimes the camera can play tricks with you. That’s why every day I don’t step on that scale. You’re not supposed to. One day it might say 219; the next it might say 222. In all honesty, right before we hit the road to go on this little trip, you weigh yourself. I was 219, 6 percent body fat. My body fat is better than it was last year. Last year, I was like 225 and then I got down to 221. But I’m not arguing with nobody what’s going on. That’s what they want.”
To Waiters, as long as Riley and coach Erik Spoelstra know the true numbers, that is all that matters.
“I feel great,” he said. “Don’t you think Coach would have said something?”
Actually, Waiters doesn’t feel great, having had to retreat to the Heat locker room to throw up at the end of the first quarter of Monday’s loss to the Atlanta Hawks, still dealing with a stomach issue he believes came from a Sunday spaghetti dinner at an Atlanta restaurant.
“I felt like I was dying, man,” he said. “I think it was food poisoning. That’s my favorite food, too. I don’t know. Either I ate too much or I don’t know.”
“I threw up like eight times and I didn’t even eat anything the whole day leading up to the game. I couldn’t get up. I just felt so woozy. Man, dog, I ain’t feel like that in a long time.”
Waiters pushed through the discomfort Monday because starting backcourt partner Goran Dragic was out with an elbow injury, which again could be the case Wednesday against the Boston Celtics at TD Garden.
“I have to, especially if Goran is not going to play,” he said. “We’ve got to just keep this thing going.”
WILLIAMS UP: The Heat recalled Matt Williams Jr., the undrafted guard out of Central Florida, from the G League Sioux Falls Skyforce to bolster their injury-decimated roster.