Dion Waiters to LA Lakers: Unclear how buyout signing will benefit NBA title contenders
Watch Lakers @ Clippers at 7.30pm on Sky Sports Arena as part of a mouth-watering NBA Sundays double-header, with Thunder @ Celtics following at 10pm
Sunday 8 March 2020 10:48, UK
The Los Angeles Lakers had a few different courses of action they could have taken prior to waiving Troy Daniels then signing Dion Waiters and it's not entirely clear what benefits the reported signing of the eighth-year guard will have for the title contenders, writes Sky Sports NBA analyst Mark Deeks.
Every year in the NBA, there is what is known as a buyout market. Just after the trade deadline passes in early February, there begins the process of waivers of certain veterans, several of whom are swiftly picked back up again in the following week or two by other teams.
The reason for this lies in a certain deadline date. At the close of business on March 1, players on an NBA roster are only playoff-eligible with that one team. If they are subsequently waived by that team, they still have the freedom to sign with any other, yet they will not be able to play on that team's playoff roster should they make it. As such, buyouts usually take place in the window between the trade deadline and this date; the time in between is when certain veterans enter the so-called buyout market. And while these moves are rarely particularly impactful, there are always a couple that slightly move the needle.
One of the more famous examples was a couple of years ago, when the Philadelphia 76ers picked up both Marco Belinelli and Ersan Ilyasova in this way. The two went on to form an important bench pairing for what was then a young Philadelphia team's playoff push, and although the additions did not see the Sixers win the title, they did improve the quality of their team, and both were able to use that platform to get big multi-year contracts in the ensuing free agency period.
Most buyout signings are a bit of a washout, of course - if these players were particularly good, they would have been traded at the deadline or kept by the previous team. There are however possibilities around, and with the Los Angeles Clippers having been able to acquire Reggie Jackson in this way last month, the LA Lakers have been working the market heavily themselves.
They have already made one signing. With DeMarcus Cousins (who was injured before ever taking the court with the Lakers) waived, they used the Disabled Player Exception that they received in light of his injury on Markieff Morris, also bought out by the same Pistons that bought out Jackson.
The Lakers seemingly envision Morris as being able to play minutes at the power forward position and add some stretch-shooting three-point range. Having shot 39.7 per cent from outside with the Pistons this season, the move is understandable; they were getting nothing from Cousins anyway, and the exception was going to expire if not used this week. Although Morris has declined defensively over the last few years and no longer rebounds his position at an average rate, he is in theory that shooting option at both the four and five spots as desired.
However, not just content with that, the Lakers also gave themselves a second bite of the cherry. They also waived Troy Daniels, a sometimes-useful bench shooter they brought in last summer for the minimum salary, but a limited player who casts up outside shots with fairly reckless abandon while contributing very little in terms of ball-handling, dribble penetration and the like.
The question was, if they do not want volume backcourt shooting from this end of the bench roster spot, what were they after? What did they feel they needed more than that?
Throughout the season, one of the frequent narratives around the Lakers has been they could use some help at the point guard position. Over the course of last summer, they compiled a five-man rotation at the position; Avery Bradley was brought in as the primary defensive option, Rajon Rondo is the ball-handler and playmaker, Quinn Cook is the shooter and Alex Caruso is the possession-winning pest who somehow combines screen assists with charges-taken and tip-dunks in a way that few other backup guards do.
Flanking all them, LeBron James has essentially played the position offensively this season, and doing so well, leading the league in assists. He rightly has the ball in his hands the majority of the time, as the Lakers reshaped their roster to give him more shooters and defenders rather than extra players who need the ball in their hands (such as the mistake signings of Lance Stephenson and Michael Beasley last season, both better on the ball than off it).
The only remaining ball-dominant playmaker on the roster apart from James is Rondo, someone whom the team seems to feel a strong affinity for. However, now into his mid-thirties, Rondo has declined quite a bit. He still has the passing vision and creativity with the handle that he did in his prime, yet his passing is getting sloppy, his defence withers with each passing year, and although he has improved as an outside shooter from the non-shooting threat he was in his youth, he is still only a mediocre catch-and-shoot option with very little touch off the dribble and who still misses (or passes up) lay-ups quite regularly.
Live NBA: LA Lakers @ LA Clippers
Rondo in theory was the player to have the ball in his hands whenever James went out, but he has not been particularly effective within this role, and when paired with James, given his lack of off-ball threat, he is even less effective. The narrative has therefore always been the Lakers would be looking for a player who could handle the ball reliably and effectively, while also shooting quite well and doing enough to just about got their position adequately. A big ask, to be sure, but between Jackson and one other, there were possible candidates.
For a long time, an oft-cited name for this role was Darren Collison, an NBA veteran who surprisingly retired over the summer after a two-year stint with the Indiana Pacers. As recently as last season, Collison started 76 games and averaged 11.2 points and 6.0 rebounds per game, with a near 4:1 assist-to-turnover ratio, a +1 net rating, a .574% true shooting percentage and a +2.1 VORP (Value Over Replacement Player). He was not the door-opening lead guard Indiana needed, but with Los Angeles, nor would he need to be.
Notwithstanding the fact he would require some time to get up to speed after several months out, to be able to pick up a player of his calibre at mid-season would be akin to the Belinelli and Ilyasova signings as a success of the mid-season buyout market. However, Collison has decided to stay retired, and so the Lakers needed to look elsewhere - and while Jackson would have been near-enough ideal, he went across town.
Jackson, however, decided to do so before Daniels was waived, and thus the Lakers felt it was worth creating this roster spot anyway. Roughly concurrent with the announcement of the Daniels move, it was announced the team would be working out free agent guards JR Smith and Dion Waiters, and although the move is not yet official, reports state the Lakers have agreed to sign Waiters for the remainder of the season.
Waiters began this season with the Miami Heat, his fourth year with the team. However, he played only three games this year, and indeed played in only 123 in his entire Miami tenure. Often injured, Waiters compounded that by being suspended and benched for insubordination, while also being outplayed by Tyler Herro and Kendrick Nunn - moreover, his production declined in each of those four seasons in all basic statistical categories.
Where once he was an important reclamation project and a part of how they were able to stay afloat during the cap hell years, Waiters became part of the cap hell himself. It has been a long time since anyone has been able to rely upon Waiters as a player, if ever they could.
Traded to the Memphis Grizzlies as part of the Andre Iguodala deal, Waiters was immediately waived by his incoming team without even giving any salary back. The Grizzlies concluded it was more worthwhile to pay him nearly $20m to never play for them. None of this is an endorsement of a man who likes to call himself Kobe Wade, as he feels his game is a blend of the two. If he really was that good of an offensive player, he would not have a career offensive rating of 98.
In theory, Waiters could offer shooting in scoring from the bench. He is however not the calibre of shooter that Daniels is, hitting only 34.8 per cent from three-point range in his career on a three-point rate of .324. While that last number has risen sharply in recent seasons, the shooting percentage has not.
Waiters is at his best as a spot-up player, ranking in the 94th percentile in such positions last year alongside only the 34th in isolation and the 58th as a pick-and-roll ball-handler. However, he spent almost as much time in the latter two as he did in what is supposed to be his best attribute. In stopping the ball, taking too many difficult shots off the dribble and never standing out on the defensive end, Waiters is a bench volume scorer, not a shooter, and not efficient. It should be cause for great concern that he has a negative VORP rating for his career.
Of course, Waiters is only taking the place of Daniels, a marginal contributor himself, and it is not as if the Lakers could easily find the versatile all-round reserve point guard outlined above. Nevertheless, it is not immediately obvious what the Lakers feel Waiters will provide them that they do not already have. This team needs secondary play-making, consistent two-way bench contributions, a big wing defender and someone to help alleviate the sloppy turnovers. Dion Waiters is none of those players.
He does however have Rich Paul as an agent, who represents both LeBron and Anthony Davis. So maybe that's the reason.
