Waiters: ‘Scary’ equals success
Recently re-signed guard predicts big things for Heat in ’17-18.
MIAMI — Dion Waiters is known for his confidence, and it was on display during an appearance on Fox Sports 1’s “Undisputed” on Tuesday.
Skip Bayless, one of the hosts on “Undisputed,” has made it known he believes the Heat can make it to the Eastern Conference finals next season. Waiters doesn’t disagree.
“We’re a scary team,” Waiters said Tuesday on “Undisputed” when asked about Bayless’ prediction. “We’ve got a lot of different pieces that we were all counted out and nobody gave us a chance, for real. We got with coach (Erik Spoelstra) and coach (Pat Riley), and they saw something in us from Day 1. It started with training camp. From there on out, we felt like the underdog and we felt like we had something to prove.”
After re-signing Waiters and James Johnson and retaining Wayne Ellington last week, the Heat are bringing back most of last season’s team that went 30-11 over the final 41 regular-season games.
With those signings, the Heat now have 10 players from last year’s season-ending roster under contract for next season, and Udonis Haslem is also expected to re-sign with Miami to push that number to 11.
Waiters believes that continuity will help the Heat avoid another slow start. Miami began 11-30 before turning things around to finish 4141, failing to make the playoffs because of a tiebreaker.
“We have chemistry,” Waiters said. “Everybody knows their roles. You’ve got to be a star in your role, whatever it is. I think coming into this season, we know what’s at stake. We know that nasty taste we had in our mouths from last season by missing the playoffs by one game.”
Waiters was one of the big reasons behind Miami’s second-half surge. The 25-yearold averaged 18.4 points on 46.7 percent shooting to go with 3.6 rebounds and 4.8 assists over 25 of the final 41 games. A sprained ankle forced Waiters to miss the season’s final 13 games, and Miami went 7-6 in his absence.
“It was one of the worst ankle injuries I’ve ever had,” Waiters said Tuesday, almost four months after sustaining the injury. “It’s good. It’s probably like 90 percent. It’s still a little swollen, but I’m fine.”
“Undisputed” hosts Shannon Sharpe and Bayless kept pushing Waiters on whether he believes the Heat can beat the Cavaliers in a playoff series next season. The Heat shooting guard seemed hesitant to make that prediction, but he pointed out that Miami went 3-1 against Cleveland last season.
“I like our chances against anybody over seven games,” Waiters said. “We’re just different. We’re dogs. We’re a bunch of dogs. We come from the jungle. That’s our motto.”
He also appeared on “The Herd with Colin Cowherd” on Tuesday, where his confidence continued to shine through. This time, however, it was more personal.
Waiters, who just signed a four-year, $52 million deal, said he was the fourth-best shooting guard in the NBA behind James Harden, Klay Thompson and Dwyane Wade.
That standing would leave him above the Timberwolves’ Jimmy Butler, Raptors AllStar DeMar DeRozan and the Wizards’ Bradley Beal.
According to the Hollinger NBA Statistics, Waiters was only worth 2.8 wins to the Heat last season, 25th among NBA shooting guards. Butler, it said, was worth 20.5 wins for the Bulls, while DeRozan was worth 17.7 wins to the Raptors.
Post staff writer Alex Makrides contributed to this story.