Hours before tip against LA, Waiters declared out
The curious case of Miami Heat guard Dion Waiters took a preemptive twist prior to Friday night’s game against the Los Angeles Lakers at Staples Center.
Declared out of Thursday night’s victory over the Phoenix Suns at Talking Stick Resort Arena less than two hours before tipoff of that game due to a stomach illness, Waiters on Friday was declared out on the NBA’s 5:30 p.m. injury report, more than five hours before the Heat’s scheduled tipoff against the Lakers, due to illness, with no other details.
In this case, however, it does not appear to be a punitive situation, with a medical situation occurring on the Heat’s overnight flight Thursday from Phoenix.
The Heat declined comment on the incident, as well as to provide any update on Waiters’ health.
Waiters, who was suspended for the Oct. 23 season-opening victory over the Memphis Grizzlies at AmericanAirlines Arena for what the Heat said was conduct detrimental to the team, has yet to join his teammates on the bench this season. He has only been docked salary from that one-game suspension.
The 27-year-old guard traveled with the Heat on the three-game trip to Denver, Phoenix and Los Angeles, but he then missed Thursday’s shootaround due to what was reported by the team as a stomach illness. He remained in the locker room for that victory over the Suns, doing the same two nights earlier during the loss to the Nuggets.
With Friday’s absence, it means Waiters now can only miss three more games this season in order to cash in on his $1.2 million bonus for appearing in at least 70 games, an annual bonus he has failed to cash in on during the previous two seasons of the four-year, $52 million freeagent contract he signed with the Heat in the 2017 offseason.
Waiters has been active for two games this season, including remaining in the Heat training area for Sunday’s blowout victory over the visiting Houston Rockets, and then Thursday’s absence in Phoenix, when he took pregame shooting after the rest of his teammates had left the court.
Also listed as out for the Heat against the Lakers were forward Justise Winslow, who is in the NBA concussion protocol because of a blow to the head in Tuesday’s loss in Denver, and forward Derrick Jones Jr., who suffered a strained left hip in the first half of Thursday’s victory over the Suns.
The Heat remain without secondround pick KZ Okpala, with the forward out of Stanford dealing with a strained left Achilles, and two-way guard Daryl Macon, who is with the G League Sioux Falls Skyforce as they open their regular season.
The Heat are scheduled to fly back to South Florida on Saturday. They are then idle until a Tuesday night game against the visiting Detroit Pistons.