It Doesn't Look Like Dion Waiters Will Be Ready For The Regular Season, And That Sucks

Sorry Heat fans, I truly mean that. I know you were most likely still riding high after the news that DWade was coming back for one last retirement tour, and with a solid season last year snagging the 6 seed despite many thinking it would be a rebuilding year, this is not exactly the news you want to hear with training camps opening in a matter of days. For those who don’t remember, Waiters played just 30 games last season, which was the first year of his new 4/52M extension. This is after playing just 46 games in the 2016-17 season, so it makes you wonder just what the hell is going on. It has to be bad luck in my opinion, because at no point in his career was Waiters ever missing major time. He was essentially a lock for 70+ games year in and year out, but ever since he’s set foot in MIA it’s been pretty brutal.

I’m no doctor, so I don’t know the specifics of what type of ankle surgery he had, but I can’t imagine they figured it was still going to be an issue heading into this season. Reports I read had it anywhere from an 8-10 month recovery, so it looks like this is ending up on the longer part of that timeline. To make matters worse, this is that same ankle that gave him trouble back in 2016, and as we’ve seen with guys over the years, you start to mess around with ankles and things can get rather ugly quick.

I certainly hope that’s not the case though. Waiters is one of the best irrational confidence guys in the entire league, so being without him for any length of time his simply robbing us all who love cocky basketball. It’s clear the ankle was bothering him as he had just 39/30% splits, which was a pretty big dip from the 42/39% from the year before. Luckily the Heat do have the guard depth to withstand this injury, with guys like Wade, Ellington, Dragic, and Tyler Johnson. That should be enough to keep things trending in the right direction, as they proved they could do it last year. I’m just thinking from a future standpoint, this is Wade’s last year, they only have Ellington for this season, Dragic has a player option after this season, and Johnson has one more after this year as well. This backcourt could look VERY different in their immediate future, leaving them potentially with a player like Waiters that may not ever return to the type of guard they thought they had when they gave him that extension. Hopefully that’s not the case, but it is a reality all Heat fans should start to consider, just as a worst case scenario.

To be honest I’m a little curious why Pat Riley hasn’t figured out a way to inject some secret recovery potion into this ankle, I feel like he has some black magic type shit that it may be time to break out. At the end of the day though, maybe this just means more shots for my man Kelly Olynyk, which I certainly could get behind.