With thirty seconds left in the game and the Heat down by eight, Dion Waiters decided to put the team on his back and score exactly eight points in the remaining thirty seconds. Unfortunately for the Heat’s winning chances (and playoff chances), they had to play foulball in between Waiters’ late-game makes, so they ended up losing by five anyway. Waiters’ clutch buckets, in the end, only served to pad his own stats and the stats of D.J. Augustin, who got a bunch of freebie free throws.
These are the kind of games that Waiters sometimes has which will trick casual fans into thinking that he’s a valuable player to have on your team. Indeed, he was very valuable to the Heat in this specific game. Indispensible, really. But more often, he’s chucking inefficient shots and killing ball-movement. No team gets better by having one of those guys on their team unless the team is the Lakers and the guy is Kobe Bean Bryant. At best, a Waiters-type player will have a neutral effect on the game, scoring enough points to counteract the stifling effect they have on the offense.
The above paragraph was just coherent enough that I should get to write for ESPN now. If anybody there is perusing my video descriptions looking for insightful content to steal, take a break from that for just a moment and HMU me up.