David Thorpe has assessed the rookies after one month and Dion didn’t make his top 10. Here’s what he had to say about Waiters:
“Dion Waiters, Cavaliers — Nov. 23: Waiters still looks like a more dribble-happy version of Marcus Thornton with a bigger upside. His raw numbers looked good against the Magic — he scored 25 points and dished out 5 assists with no turnovers. But I counted him shooting 3-for-10 on bad shots, meaning he missed seven times when he had far better options than what he chose: step-back 3s with time on the clock, a one-on-three transition drive and “hope” shot, and forced long jumpers.
During Cleveland’s recent five-game stretch, he made five shots per game and missed 12 per game, which is tough to swallow when Cleveland lost four of those games by close margins. If Waiters learns the value of good shot selection, he’ll see his shooting percentages go up while his team wins more games.”
Thoughts?
Mallory: Nice SI post. As for the step back J, it’s not a bad shot when the offense is breaking down, but that’s really the only other time, unless one is very very good at it. Mid-range J’s are also a bad shot unless one can convert a high percentage. There’s few guards that are: Mo Williams and Rip Hamilton come to mind. The most efficient shots are 3s and shots at the rim. The least effective shots are long 2s early in the shot clock against a set defense. Why? Because they eschew a higher percentage shot and the odds of rebounding them are lower. Dion pulling up from 18 against a double team is a bad shot, and it’s happening at least once or twice a game. Say he made 10% of these. 3, out of 30. If you take those 27 misses out, suddenly his field goal percentage is respectable. *shrug* He’ll figure it out or he won’t. I will say he’ll never finish like Harrison Barnes did the other night. Good God.
Isaac
No, not every player from college has this. Most college players come into the NBA and realize that they can’t get off shots because they are no longer quicker and more athletic than the competition. What Dion has shown is that he is quicker and more athletic than most of the competition. This is a special skill.
And yes, I and everybody else (except for Mallory I guess) understands that of course we are looking at his potential. It would be dumb and stupid to whine about his play as of right now and not look and see that his future look very bright. Certainly, at this point brighter than most of the players taken in the draft.
Cols -
I don’t know what your obsession is with me, but it’s starting to creep me out.
I’ll give you $1000 if you can find one single point where I claim that I think Dion has no future in the NBA. Really.
MF
Your negative comments and podcasting has been evident all season long. I’m not the only one to point this out. But you got me, you never claimed that Dion has no future in the NBA. I have also never claimed that you claimed this. We can do this all day.
Cols, if you have problems with my supposed negativity (I prefer to call it perceptiveness) feel free to ignore anything I say. I wont take it personally.
Cols – is there a limit to the depth of your optimism? For example, is CJ Miles “alarming”? Where’s your line in the sand? When does something become critique-able? If right now Waiters was shooting 50% on 3s, would your projection be the same for his career? Or does the b in Y = mx+b just go up, in other words, he’s going to finish his career an 60% 3 point sniper because anyone given time just magically adds like 20% to everything positive and subtracts 30% from everything negative. After that Clippers win I thought “man, Dion can get hot, and he has range”. Did you look at what his current 3PFG% was after that game and extrapolate Ray Allen’s record getting broken? Or is all this just meaningless either way and Waiters is just destined to become a superstar as long as we give him a enough patience and water and wind [or whatever ingredients he will surely get from just having a pulse] to carve out a grand canyonesque HoF career? have you ever seen an NBA player that came into the league and didn’t really improve? Like Tyreke Evans? People were “alarmed” with his shot selection early, and compared him to Dwyane Wade. Guess what, he didn’t fix it. Now he’s a disappointment and the Kings suck. If you could go back in time and talk to those Kings fans, would you reassure them that Tyreke has a sick handle and can get his shot off and CAN do a couple other things that most NBA players can do and they should relax? You know, I keep seeing people bringing up limited turnovers as something awesome about Dion. Here’s how I look at it. He has a sub 13 PER and he’s a rookie that is limiting turnovers. Limiting turnovers is actually something rookie guards improve over time. So if anyone thinks his PER is going to shoot up to 20 next year because he’s going to stop coughing it up so much – he can’t. he already takes care of the ball. he’s going to have to: (DRUM ROLL PUHLEASE) Finish at the rim, and go go the rim more (another way of saying “take less bad shots”)
Sorry if i think shooting percentage from our supposed #2 option (#1 option with kyrie out) is an important stat. The guy was drafted to be a well rounded scorer, yes, but still a scorer. Rookies do struggle shooting, but most can at least get to 40%. Only truely terrible Daniel Gibson types finish at the rim as poorly as waiters has. He’s young, he’s learning, its a small sample. All valid points. But if we are judging the rookies of the year today, many other rookies have been doing more to earn their teams W’s than Dion’s good on ball defense, below average off-ball defense, 1.5 steals, 3 assists, 2 rebounds, and 9.4 missed shots on 12 decent and ~3 terrible shot attempts in 32 minutes per game.
Thats not to say he won’t crack the top ten by the end of the year. But right now, with the brutal schedule and increased responsibility put on him with Kyrie’s injury, he’s expectedly struggled a bit. Most of the guys ahead of him are in better situations, to be sure. But all of these rankings are based on how much better you make your team right now. Dion is making himself better right now, and his 3 assists a game and on ball defense are making his team better right now, but all those missed shots, especially the long contested twos with time on the clock (even just 3 a game for 15 games is ~45 terrible shots) , are downright hurting our chances of winning right now. Most rookies aren’t being asked to do as much, and are thus not put in situations that might expose their growing pains. But at the same time, I think its entirely justified that he be outside the top ten right now. I don’t expect it to stay that way.
It’s the end of an era gentlemen. Harangody was waived today. The guy got a million to sit court side for 14 games. ‘Merica!
Setting up impossible questions for me to answer is dumb.
What’s more likely that Waiters improves his game the bit that needs it and becomes a star, or he continues this path and becomes JR Smith?
I’m going with improves.
Kyrie – i’ve also noticed his on-ball defense is “better”. I put that in quotes because I’m a terrible observer of defense. (We need Nate’s take). But he is certainly working very hard at that end and he is getting a healthy amount of steals. I think he will definitely crack the top 10 by the end of the year. He will be helped a lot by Kyrie being healthy. He’s pressing a lot right now, but that’s good. I’m glad he’s going through the gauntlet and nothing is coming easy from him. Hopefully he doesn’t read this blog or listen to our podcasts or he will get a big head with all the blind faith me and others are constantly putting in his growth potential. Seriously, the coach, the writers, this blog, myself – we have all called him [like] Dwyane Wade[ish, 2.0,] at one time or another. That’s some serious praise for a guy that has really DONE nothing Wade-like yet.
He needs to improve more than a “bit” from 37%. He also needs to improve his off-ball defense more than a “bit”
If he truly wants to be a star, he’ll need to do serious work on rebounds and assists as well. He has all the potential to get there. He’s not nearly as close as you seem to think, and the improvements aren’t nearly as easy or guaranteed either.
no one is saying he won’t improve. But he’ll have to improve a lot just to become a JR Smith.
This is not an impossible question. I’m asking you what you would have to see happen for any criticism to be warranted. I think we can all stop fighting with you if you just say “Guys, NOTHING that happens is going to make me think a negative thought. I don’t need to see ANYTHING discernible this season to be happy. As far as I’m concerned, the team could lose every game from here on out by double digits and I know they are destined for greatness because they are young and it’s only age that needs to change (and I know it will) for this team to be awesome. Nothing that Chris Grant or Waiters or B Scott or Irving or Thompson do can change my mind.” If you say that, then, WE GET IT. We’ll just ignore you and wish we could be so content with sub-optimal results. My cousin is 20 and he plays poker for a living. I’m not worried about how he fills out our PF spot because he’s no where near his prime. And I’m pretty sure he can dribble and pass and throw balls towards hoops. As long as he keeps his cholesterol under control we’ll see him retired to the rafters one day.
Seriously, draw a line in the sand. What would Dion Waiters shot selection have to look like for you to go “Ok, you know what, he needs to actively work to improve this, it might not ‘just happen’”. How bad would his conversion rate at the rim have to be for you to say “I hope he actively does something to change that, because it’s bad.” Like 30%? 25%? How bad does the aggregate have to be before the “potential” and the “flashes of greatness” aren’t enough to satisfy you?
Tom
I don’t know why you are trying to draw a distinction between actively work to improve and it might just happen.
Actively working to improve is usually how things happen. I don’t get what you are trying to say.
All I have to say about this is that I liked Dion on June 28th and essentially nothing about my opinion on him has changed.
Even more simply: does anything happening on the basketball court right now matter? What observable event would cause you to be critical?
Tom
I don’t like to answer stupid questions like this, but OK.
If Dion wasn’t able to create his own shot, I’d be worried
If Dion wasn’t able to get to the rim, I’d be worried
If Dion hadn’t shown the ability to shoot decently from three, I’d be worried
If Dion turned the ball over a ton, I’d be worried.
None of these things has happened. The worst we can say is that perhaps he should be a bit smarter in shot selection and make a few more shots at the rim.
Yet there is a huge air of negativity around CTB about him that I don’t understand at all.
ahaha I almost fell out of my chair when I read Singler, Roberts, and Henson
John Henson 6 pts 3.8 rebounds in 12 minutes a game.
Kyle Singler 9 pts 3 rebounds in 28 minutes a night
Brian Roberts 7.8ps 2 assts
Ande Drummond 6 pts 6 rbs
They all have okay PERs, but he clearly looked at a PER list and used that as rankings. Most of those guys play limited minutes vs backups. Dion goes nightly vs most teams best perimeter defender.
Stuff like this is how you tank any remaining credibility you may have as a writer.
Cols714….that “huge air of negativity around CtB” is just your perception and you’re reading into things the way you want to read into them.
Are certain writers on this blog hyperbolic? Most certainly. Do they go to extremes from time to time? Of course. But not all of them. Thats why you focus on the ones you enjoy reading and not take anything that the ones you have an issue with get to you. You’ll be surprised how well that works out.
I think that would go for KJ too but taking my own advice, I’ve tuned his comments out and am pretty close to doing the same with yours. No offense.
Mallory, I’m not attacking you. I’m not really attacking anything. I’m moreso thinking about the framing of this season and how it can be productive or unproductive. Thorpe cited a bad game he had where he forced up too much. Something we agree fully on. My point is that sometimes you have to excuse that on a game-by-game basis as a learning experience. After this run where he’s being unfairly asked to put an offensive load on his back (beyond the Andy role that’s been steady) he’s still shooting solid percentages from mid-range and 3.
A contested Dion pull up at 15 seconds in the shot clock from a 41% conversion space may prove to be a better shot than the Alonzo Gee fadeaway at 4 seconds that we would have gotten. What’d you think about the pacing data from 82games? I think Tom has a great point on his finishing. Although Tom might want to look comparatively at eFG, 48% is WAY above average. Harden’s at %42, Wade’s at 38%, Tony Parker’s at 44%. Mont Ellis is at 34%. I’m just singling out high-usage guards. Ricky Davis wouldn’t sniff that percentage in his best year.
Breaking it down further it looks like he gets his best shots in that “early offense” time. Before team d is set and when he can attack decisively. Curiously his 2nd best time is at the end of the shot clock where he CANT meander before pulling up.
I doubt Dion ever cracks 60% at the rim but 53% makes him a more than effective top-tier 2 in the league.
Also, the “people who do this for a living” shot was completely unnecessary. With everyone pretty much accepting Thorpe’s analysis as flawed in that he favors his clients and his circle, why is his opinion beyond criticism? Especially when the criticism is “maybe he’s ignoring the team context and picking who he expects growth from.” I’m sure the increased comment pressure and some clear trolling is annoying but dude, I’m just pulling numbers and seeing how they support or contradict what I’m seeing.
Hey D – nice comment. I confused everyone (myself included) when I tried to make effective FG% meaningful in that post. eFG = (FG + 0.5 * 3P) / FGA. So, someone like Boobie Gibson in 2007 would have had an high eFG since so many of his FG are 3s (which we sort of allow to be a lower %-age). So since I am talking about “inside shots” eFG = FG. So, comparing the players you mentioned, here are the FG%, or eFG% if you prefer on “inside shots”
Harden: .614
Dywane Wade: .674
Tony Parker: .576
Monta Ellis: .649
Dion Waiters: .375
This is the comparison I was making. Dion’s eFG is comparable because he’s a better 3point shooter right now. One THIRD of his shots are 3s and he’s making them at a .372 clip (excellent – worthy of our praise). However, I am contending that for Dion to become “wade-like” as we are all apparently OK with saying, he’s going to have to generate high percentage shots for himself and his teammates. It’s great that he has range and looks in rhythm when he fires a lot of these. It’s nice that he can hit 3s off the dribble. This is where I said before he can make up some ground on Wade who has never been able to do this because he’s not a great shooter. But he most certainly needs to make a commitment to finishing around the hoop. He does not have Steph Curry’s stroke, so he shouldn’t try to model his game that way. Honestly the JR Smith comparisons are appropriate because there’s a super athlete that can single handedly take over games. He has all the tools, and for 3 straight years people have been waiting for him to go from 6th man to all-star and he’s never made the leap. Imagine what Josh Smith could be if he’d stop being BAD Josh Smith all the time. I’m glad Dion has the “bad shot” weapons in his bag. And despite what KJ says, the Spurs and before them the Magic modeled their entire offenses around taking only efficient “good” shots. It’s real. If Waiters could finish like any of the players you mentioned, we are talking all-star. And right now, I think that is his biggest potential area to add value. So I hope he does because I think he has the tools to do it.
Yeah Tom, we’re in full agreement that something has to be done about his finishing. I doubt we see anything more than incremental progress this season because that’s just typically not how NBA players work. They get a base of attempts in then use the summer to recalibrate. If he’s a notch or two below those elite finishers and a superior shooter then that’s a strong 4th pick in my eyes.
I almost wish the Wade comparison had never come up. I think Dion might need to drop weight or recondition his body because his HS tapes show off a pretty soft and fat guy then magically he was lighter in the summer before college and throwing town between the legs dunks on youtube. In draft prep he was looking slim but that’s draft prep where everyone is under close watch. Right now he looks a bit heavy.
The funny thing about perception is that Waiters is hitting better on j’s this year than Stephen Curry. Curry only shoots about 3% of his shots from the paint though. Part of DW’s nba transition may end with him realizing he’s a different player than he thinks he is. That Wade crap might need to fly out the window with a reimaging of his full-comp. That’s why I’ve started throwing his best-case out as Mitch Richmond. Another stocky short guy who developed a pretty lethal jumper in his mid-20s and beyond. Mitch could get in the paint and work but it became more about the elbow and pinch post as he became an effective player.
Demetrius – yeah i was very hesitant to make the comparison until BYRON SCOTT DID IT! (craziness…)
Yeah I loved Richmond so that wouldn’t be so bad. I’m not convinced THREEion is going to continue at .372. I mean if it does WOW. But I just don’t think he’s a 3 point sniper.
Missed foul calls are directly responsible for low shooting %. Forget the numbers…watch the games. Show me on instance…just one…where the dude blows a uncontested, or lightly contested shot at the rim ala Boobie or Ramon Sessions who probably led the league in layups that hit the underside of the glass. His shot selection and finishing ability will drastically improve once he gets his proper calls, and Thorpe, whos love affair with TT invalidates his opinon totally, will again look stupid for doubting a guy who has been stellar in all but one area.
Jeez.
T – I make uncontested layups.
But don’t let my contrarian attitude take away from the fact that I 1) think he’s getting rookie hazing from refs and 2) think Thorpes former love affair of another TT is something to consider when reading Thorpe. (Tyrus Thomas)
TP my friend, Id bet that if you had to dribble/gather/shoot at the speed it takes get a shot off against an NBA defender off the dribble, absorbing tough, professional-level, COMPLETELY UNOFFICIATED contact along the way…you would miss most of your layup attempts even if the defender didn’t contest the actual shot.
From what I’ve seen, Waiters has the girth, athleticism, and creativity to make an above average percentage of shots at the rim in the future, and I would bet my 401K on that.
Tyrus Thomas. Yucky.
Thorpe hates Dion Waiters, that is obvious.
I think Cavs fan on here need to relax and be happy with what he’s doing at this point. Already 1 month into the season and we’re asking him to now run the offense, be the only pure scorer on the 1st unit and then somehow he has a lot of his fans up his ass, bc he takes some bad shots? C’mon give the dude a break and let him develop.
While Thorpe and for some reason a lot of you guys hate him?? I’ll sit back and rejoice at these growing pains. Micro-managing a 21 year old rookie learning the game and getting minimal calls is just something I won’t do.
dion has star potential. no need to worry guys. he’s a rookie playing 30+ a night. what do you expect
“Dion Waiters “inside” shots: eFG (that’s EFFECTIVE, not even just FG%): 37%. That is putrid.”
This stat probably takes thousands of samples before it converges. I doubt 1 full season would be enough to make it meaningful.
“Advanced” stats in sports are fun but they are almost always useless due to a lack of appropriate samples. Everyone on FTS has this problem as well.
Also, if you watched Wade in college, then watched Waiters in college, D Wade is a much better player in all aspects of basketball.
D Wade may be a top 10 SG of all time, Dion does not have this ceiling. He does not have Wade’s athleticism, court vision, finishing ability, understanding of basketball, his ability to force contact for fouls, his ability to finish with contact, his ability to take over games. Dion also does not appear to be as much of a competitor as Dwayne Wade.
The comparison’s need to stop because Dion will never achieve them, or come close.
That being said he could be an 8 time all-star and not be as good as Dwayne Wade and I think everyone would be fine with this.
Corey and Kyrie
I agree completely. This board is so negative, but you guys are exactly right. Let the others freak out.
WitmI – not sure you what mean about converge. See my other comment. I should have just said FG%. He’s converting around the rim at less than 40%. See the other player comparisons. I agree with your assessment that he’s not going to be Wade, but could still be a superstar. Btw, every single person on this blog thinks Dion has star potential. I’m not sure where these spurious comments are coming from implying otherwise. Oh wait, yes I do,
All you guys hating on thorpes rankings, He’s not redrafting, or calling out how he thinks all the rookies will do in their careers. He’s saying, RIGHT NOW, who has been most effective on the court. Bad calls or not, unlicky finishes or not, Dion is missing a ton of shots. That is a very large factor in hurting a team.
WitmI, again, Thorpe is not ranking rookies as prospects, but on results so far this year. That being the case, the small sample size is what it is going to be based on.
And I agree, the wade comparisons are too much. They were meant to reflect style of play, not talent at basketball. Waiters is a bulldog who, as an undersized shooting guard, can get to the hoop very well and play good D and make the occasional good pass on the drive. Its all true, but that is pretty much where the comparison ends. D-Wade is worlds apart athletically, as a finisher, competitor, student of the game, and drawer of fouls, and Dion is probably a better shooter.
I agree that comparing players to future HOFers is a bit much. However, how do you know that Wade is a better “student of the game and competitor”?
You have no idea if this is true or not.
@WitmI
All statistics take a larger sample size before you can see a trend. Advanced statistics are just a different way of evaluating a players performance outside of the traditional per game statistics like points or rebounds. While it is definitely way too early to use Advanced Statistics (or any statistic) to judge what the long term potential of a player like Dion is, it is not to early to use Advanced Statistics to evaluate his play up to this point in the season.
“student of the game and competitor” are is very subjective Cols, I’ll give you that. But based on the fact that wade is an incredibly smart on court player and a truly fierce competitor who has willed his teams to victories many times, and has shown he will give up shots and star power to win, win, win, and in my opinion (which is all one can really have on judging those two qualities) is one of the smartest and most competitive players in the game, for the time being I’ll go ahead and give wade the edge. Dion can prove me wrong on all accounts, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
I agree that comparing Dion to Wade is crazy; the guy has made 7 all-NBA teams and won two championships. Almost never should a rookie receive comparisons like that; they’re almost hopeless to live up to.
On a level playing field though; Waiters is one year younger than Wade when they debuted in the NBA. How would Waiters look at Syracuse right now? How would Wade have looked in the NBA during his final year at Marquette? Those would be more apt comparisons.
So much ado about Dion Waiters, but one thing that I haven’t seen addressed more is: how has he IMPROVED so far throughout the season? We all know about Dion’s potential to be Dwayne Wade, etc, but rookies tend to screw everything up so it’s assumed they exhibit deficiencies. I should HOPE Dion, or any rookie, is not playing at or near their ceiling, because nothing is scarier than the player who CEASES to grow. What Dion can or can’t do at the present is not so important 15 games into his NBA career; it’s what he could do in game 15 that he couldn’t in game 14.
It takes about 3 years into the career of a pro athlete to really evaluate the product you have: first season to show you belong, second season to improve on the first, and third season to prove that the other 2 were legit. You can estimate a player’s potential as high as you want, there is still a long and difficult road to reach it. And everyone develops differently. How far along that road are you when the end is unknown? Impossible to tell, so you check how far you’ve come. So spare me the details of poor shot selection and inability to finish — I’ll keep my fingers crossed that those improve — I want to know what Dion Waiters HAS improved in reaching his potential.
You also have to look at how Wade came into the NBA with a winning atmosphere. Having Shaq as you’re go to for much of the season is a pretty ideal situation for anyone. Wade didn’t really become Wade to me until those last few games of the Championship season.