Wait for Waiters appears to be over

Decision on point guard to come on road Wednesday

MIAMI — Dion Waiters did not play in an NBA game in 2018. The Miami Heat’s first game of 2019 may bring his return.

Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said at Tuesday’s practice ahead of Wednesday night’s game at the Cleveland Cavaliers that Waiters will travel with the team for the first time since ankle surgery last January. Whether the 6-foot-4 guard will be able to make his season debut and first return to action since Dec. 22, 2017, will be determined Wednesday.

“We’ll list him right now as questionable, but we’ll make that decision on the road,” Spoelstra said. “We just want to get him to go through shootaround and put him in position to make the next step, which potentially could be availability [Wednesday].”

Waiters, who says the ankle is doing well but “has its days,” maintained Tuesday that he’s ready to make his return, as he was ahead of Sunday’s home loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves. So much so that Uninterrupted’s Twitter account posted a pre-recorded video on Waiters coming back during the first quarter that said: “Don’t call it a comeback! @dionwaiters3 makes his long awaited return to

the court tonight for the @MiamiHEAT.”

Waiters, of course, was not dressed. The video was never deleted.

“I’m ready,” Waiters said Tuesday. “There’s nothing else really to talk about. Whenever the time is, I guess, that’s when I’ll be ready. But I’m ready.”

It would be fitting for Waiters to return in Cleveland against the team that drafted him with the No. 4 pick in 2012 and later traded him to the Oklahoma City Thunder as part of a three-team deal in January 2015, six months after LeBron James returned to the Cavs and five months before the team made its first of four consecutive NBA Finals appearances.

Although he may have done so earlier in his Heat tenure, the career 13-points-per-game scorer no longer feels any animosity toward the Cavaliers.

“I’ve been past that stage,” said Waiters, who averaged 15.8 points over 46 games in his first season in Miami in 2016-17.

“Things happen. I’ve been there in the past. The first time, the first couple times, I feel like I went in there and performed and got a win. I’m past that stage.

“Like I said, I’ll always have a special place for Cleveland for taking a chance on a kid like me. I don’t even think about that no more.”

Although Waiters understands it’ll be a process to ease him back, he looks to provide an offensive spark for a team that shows at times, such as on Sunday, it could use an additional scorer — despite an encouraging 9-5 record in December.

“He’s one of the few guys on the team that can get in the paint without [the] pick and roll,” said center Hassan Whiteside, who added that he can benefit from Waiters’ ability to throw the lob.

“I think that’s very dynamic. He can really handle the ball and break the defender down without needing a five man to set the pick.”

Said star guard Dwyane Wade: “He’s a big shot taker and maker.”

Defensively, with the resurgence of the zone in the Heat’s scheme, Waiters can lean on what he learned under Jim Boeheim at Syracuse.

“I know the zone a little bit — I still do,” Waiters said. “I think the zone has been effective for us. That’s not nothing I need to worry about because I know it.”

So now the question becomes how will Waiters be incorporated into the guard rotation with the Heat so deep at the position even with point guard Goran Dragic sidelined into at least February?

“The tough decision is on Coach,” Wade said. “Whatever your job on this team is, just be prepared to do your job and understand on certain nights it’s going to be different than others.

“It’s no different from what we’ve been going through all year. We’re a guard-heavy team, so whoever is called upon to [do] what’s next, do it. Whoever is called upon to take a lesser role, it’s what it is. It’s what we have to do.”