The oft-mocked acquisition of Dion Waters by the Lakers has already paid dividends. Because I don’t think it’s wrong to say that Waiters WON this game for his new team. Take away his 5 buckets (only one fewer bucket than LeBron, take that for data), take away his 11 points, and do the Lakers come out of this with the W? The precepts of integer mathematics say they do not.
I’m looking around for any trace of haters, but it seems they have vanished into the simmering murk of their own stupidity. Weird.
Waiters only managed to play three games for Miami this season, a sad end to a stint that saw him manage to generate a small amount of hype for the post-big-three Heat. “Waiters Island”, they called it. It seems so long ago, and not only because EVERYTHING these days seems so long ago because covid has massively distorted everyone’s sense of time. He was the heart and soul of that 2016-17 team that went on a massive tear in the second half of the season only to miss the playoffs anyway.
There is very little chance that he will be the heart and soul of this Lakers team. It would be funny if he was, if he somehow recreated the Waiters Island magic on the other side of the country, but he won’t. I don’t think LeBron will let him; I was already feeling kind of uneasy with some of the shots Waiters was taking while sharing the court with LeBron. Like, dude, you know you don’t have to take that shot when you’ve got a GOAT-candidate standing right there?