Dion Waiters (All-Rookie First Team)

[bigfoot5415]

I dont have exact numbers but Lillard seems to be aying alot. With OT i think he had 40 to tonight.

[elcheato]

Did you read what I wrote? Who do you think the Bobcats 2nd best player, or first for that matter? It's normal for rookies to be broken in slowly. You don't just throw them in for 40 minutes a night starting game 1.

The Blazers have had no problems handing over the keys to Lillard and playing him huge minutes, because he was clearly their best PG from day 1.

But some coaches have to stick with playing mediocre veterans for some minutes the rookies should be getting because they haven't "earned" their playing time yet.

[apolo29]

Did you read what I wrote? Who do you think the Bobcats 2nd best player, or first for that matter? It's normal for rookies to be broken in slowly. You don't just throw them in for 40 minutes a night starting game 1.

I think charlotte counts kemba as their best player, and MKG, offensively, isn't even in the top 5. He scored 10+ for the first time tonight. Defensively he's been a beast but I think it's more justifiable to give him less minutes than it is dion, when we have cj miles and walton out here stinking it up and then dion comes in and makes some sweet jumpers/ layups off the dribble. Love the guy, eventually he will be big time. Get used to Kyrie and Dion as the Big 2 of cleveland

[Jack Brickman]

Did you read what I wrote? Who do you think the Bobcats 2nd best player, or first for that matter? It's normal for rookies to be broken in slowly. You don't just throw them in for 40 minutes a night starting game 1.

I think it really depends on the rookie. It's pretty obvious that Dion is our third-best player behind Kyrie and AV. He plays hard on both ends of the floor, he's a good distributor, and he can get to the hoop. Not only is he better, but he's more fun to watch than anyone backing him up (or anyone on the team, as above, not named Kyrie or Anderson). Sure, he makes dumb mistakes from time to time, but that's every rookie ever.

The bottom line is that when the people backing you up are named Daniel Gibson and Donald Sloan, you should be playing over thirty minutes a game.

[chrisrich91]

The Blazers have had no problems handing over the keys to Lillard and playing him huge minutes, because he was clearly their best PG from day 1.

But some coaches have to stick with playing mediocre veterans for some minutes the rookies should be getting because they haven't "earned" their playing time yet.

If Lillard keeps playing huge minutes, he'd have to be a total anomaly not to crash the fuck into the rookie wall midseason. Maybe he's somehow gotten his body into NBA season shape before ever playing in the NBA, but if not he's going to fatigue brutally towards the second half of the season.

It's not always about some power trip with coaches about rookies "earning their minutes". Some coaches are smart enough to realize the physical beating their rookie's body isn't ready for during at 82 game season and tries to pace them with playing time. Your assumptions are way off base and much too general.

[chrisrich91]

Liked what I saw out of Dion tonight. He and Kyrie maximizing each other's talents playing off one another will take a lot of games, but right now the two threat, take turns thing is working nicely. If you can't see the incredible potential of Dion working the pick and roll, you don't know basketball. He worked the midrange game a bit tonight, keeping defenders on his hip. He needs to continue to work on getting to the rim and finishing among the trees...but even so he is playing better than most rookies up to this point. Beal has looked pretty trashy so far. MKG looks very raw. Barnes has been underwhelming. TRob has been crap on offense and horrendous on defense. Rivers is struggling.

Overall I'm happy with Dion's play thus far. Showing me about what I'd see at this point. With his ball handling, natural feel for the pick and roll, and nice jumper off the bounce, I don't think it's difficult to see why select people thought he has the most actual star potential from a perimeter player in this class. If he can put the flashes we've seen together consistently, he looks like a stud.

[Pioneer10]

Been happy with Waiters performance. That being said Dion seems like he's due for a real big game soon. Still get the feeling he's still missing a lot of shot (midrange, at the rim) that he'll be able to make on a consistent basis as he matures.

The one critique so far is I'm in the camp that want him to shoot less 3's. He's putting 1-2 contested 3's or long jumpers a game that are low percentage shots. This hurts his FG% not only because he's missed these 3's so far but also takes away possession where he can attack the rim.

[apolo29]

I think he's due for a big game but for a different reason than missing shots, I think pretty soon coach is going to realize that it's better for him to be taking shots than CJ miles, and so he'll be asked to be more aggressive. For large stretches while dion was out there he was asked to do little more than stand around. That may be a design or it may be because he has no clue how to play off the ball. Then he had a nice stretch in the second half where the ball was in his hands and he created.

The best strategy right now, to me, seems to take dion out when he has been taken out and then put him in as the anchor for the second unit and let him ball dominate during that time instead of subbing 5 out. Once kyrie and co come back out, take dion out for a bit (so his minutes stay the same). I'm much more comfortable with a second unit led by dion than cj miles AND it makes our scoring more efficient in that kyrie can create and score without having dion standing around doing nothing.

[Jack Brickman]

I have to say I am loving the irony of the rookie that most of the people on here didn't want the team to draft now being the only guy anyone trusts running the second unit.

[Frank Reynolds]

When Waiters brings the ball up, he looks identical to Baron Davis. Baron had the trickery with the dribble like Kyrie, but in a body as big as Dions. I can definitely appreciate Dion's 225 lbs compared to Jeremy Lamb or Austin Rivers 195lbs.

Waiters issue right now is he isn't sure if he should look to score or distribute. I sense that he wants to make the right play for coach, but nature is telling him to score. If he'd just commit to either the shot or the pass he'll be making even better plays and scoring at a higher clip.

It's the "snap-shot" Austin Carr always refers to. Waiters right now just goes to the hole and is unsure if he should score or dish.

[ClevelandOwnz]

26 minutes a game isn't enough when he appears to be the teams 2nd best scorer, and clearly is the only guy on the team other than Kyrie who can actually create offense.

Kyrie was the teams best scorer last year... and he gave him even less time it seemed like at the start of the season. Byron Scott knows what he is doing. he has a great track record of developing guards in this league, let him do his thing.

[mAo_mAo]

Dion with a floater is scary.

[Tornicade]

I have to say I am loving the irony of the rookie that most of the people on here didn't want the team to draft now being the only guy anyone trusts running the second unit.

fans seem to have already cast Waiters in the role as a "backup" for whatever reason.

Scott has Waiters getting comfortable with his primary role for the team. the insistence that he plays off the bench in a "harden" type of role just because thats how okc did it... (to which okc did have 2 other scorers).

Scott seems to have made some promises to some players and is intent on giving them the oppurtunity to get their time.

You guys are complaining about Waiters playing time yet he is averaging third most for the rookies ater 3 games.

Rk	Player	Age	Tm	G	MP	FGA	3PA	FTA	ORB	DRB	TRB	AST	STL	BLK	PTS	FG%	3P%	FT%	MP ▾	PER
1	Damian Lillard	22	POR	3	115	51	16	11	2	10	12	27	2	0	64	.471	.375	.909	38.3	22.0
2	Austin Rivers	20	NOH	3	87	25	4	10	0	6	6	10	5	1	18	.200	.000	.800	29.0	2.8
3	Dion Waiters	21	CLE	3	82	33	9	10	0	6	6	7	5	1	37	.424	.444	.500	27.3	12.5
4	Michael Kidd-Gilchrist	19	CHA	2	47	15	0	9	5	7	12	3	5	3	15	.333		.556	23.5	15.9
5	Anthony Davis	19	NOH	2	43	18	0	9	5	8	13	0	2	3	29	.556		1.000	21.5	35.9
6	Bradley Beal	19	WAS	2	43	13	6	4	0	4	4	4	1	0	10	.154	.333	1.000	21.5	4.0
7	Jae Crowder	22	DAL	3	63	23	12	3	0	9	9	4	2	1	26	.435	.417	.333	21.0	13.2
8	Kyle Singler	24	DET	2	40	7	3	0	2	2	4	0	0	1	15	.857	1.000		20.0	17.3
9	Harrison Barnes	20	GSW	3	57	18	5	4	2	2	4	3	0	0	24	.500	.400	1.000	19.0	11.4
10	Jared Sullinger	20	BOS	3	56	10	0	2	4	11	15	0	2	2	12	.500		1.000	18.7	11.1
11	Meyers Leonard	20	POR	3	55	2	0	8	1	8	9	1	0	2	8	.500		.750	18.3	7.1
12	Festus Ezeli	23	GSW	3	54	11	0	12	6	8	14	0	5	3	15	.455		.417	18.0	14.2
13	Jonas Valanciunas	20	TOR	2	35	19	0	0	7	6	13	2	0	3	14	.368			17.5	14.6
14	Tyler Zeller	23	CLE	3	50	14	0	9	4	7	11	1	3	1	15	.429		.333	16.7	11.0
15	Andre Drummond	19	DET	2	32	4	0	3	2	8	10	1	2	3	7	.750		.333	16.0	15.8
16	Pablo Prigioni	35	NYK	1	16	0	0	0	0	1	1	3	0	0	0				16.0	-3.8
17	Thomas Robinson	21	SAC	3	45	12	0	8	1	6	7	0	5	0	14	.333		.750	15.0	6.4
18	Alexey Shved	24	MIN	1	15	3	2	0	0	1	1	0	0	1	0	.000	.000		15.0	-10.3

whats really amazing is people critiquing his 3 point shoot selection when he is leading the rookie class with a 44% and is at averaging 3 attempts per game in this small sample

[howler1313]

You can tell that when he plays with Kyrie he's still a bit worried about stepping on his toes and he plays with some hesitation. When Byron put him in at the start of the 4th and Kyrie was on the bench, he was back to what he did best and just attacked his man and got a couple of consecutive baskets.

[apolo29]

Yea I wasn't saying make him come off the bench, I was saying that his time should be staggered with kyrie's.. Usually dion and thompson get taken out with around 6 mins left in the first and kyrie sticks around. Once kyrie gets subbed out dion should be subbed back in with the rest of the subs, and then when kyrie comes back sub him out again for a few minutes to keep playing time even.

Also, I don't know if that remark was meant at me or not but I've always supported the Dion pick.. Harrison barnes is a scrub waiting to happen in my eyes and we already had tristan thompson so fk t rob.