LeBron James’ sons aren’t allowed to play football
November 10, 2014
Ohio State makes a statement, and High School Playoff predictions
November 10, 2014When he is either named to his first All-Star team or suddenly playing in China, we will be able to point to this weekend as the one during which we were treated to everything that Dion Waiters has to offer. The good and the bad, the mundane and the bizarre, on-court and off-, were all on display before, during, and after the Cleveland Cavaliers’ game against the Denver Nuggets.
The peculiarities were already underway after the Cavs’ losses in Utah and Portland: Dion said he was still finding his way and that catching-and-shooting wasn’t his game. He was absent during the national anthem in Utah.
Those storylines were mere prelude to everything that would happen Friday night.
Shortly before tip-off in Denver, Northeast Ohio Media Group’s Chris Haynes published a story saying that Dion is Muslim, that he missed the national anthem in Utah for that reason, and that he may skip future anthems.
Wait, what??
This is America, land of religious freedom, so the religion itself is no issue. It just rang strange for this story to come out 10 minutes before a game, and in Dion’s third NBA season. If he is indeed Muslim, he kept it a secret until Friday. The only slices of internet I could find connecting Dion to Islam were a Facebook status and a tweet, from 2013 and 2011, respectively:
#salute to the Muslims that's on their #Dean much #respect
— Dionwaiters3 (@dionwaiters3) August 1, 2011
“Eid Mubarak” is a traditional Muslim greeting reserved for use on the festivals of Eid ul-Adha and Eid ul-Fitr. The “Dean” Dion refers to in the tweet is most often spelled Dīn or Deen, and it can be translated as “religion” or “the path along which righteous Muslims travel in order to comply with divine law.” I’m no expert on the subject, but this seems to check out. There’s nothing wrong with keeping one’s religion private, and maybe that’s what Dion did for the past few years.
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In any event, there was a game to play Friday night. The Cavs came out like a ball of fire against the Nuggets, sharing the rock, scoring points, and even racking up a few assists.
At the end of the first quarter, Dion drove to the hole in transition and rose for a layup. He converted the shot, but the Nuggets’ Darrell Arthur gave him a two-handed shove that sent him crashing to the floor. Dion landed on his back and stayed down for several seconds.
Arthur was called for a flagrant-two foul, was ejected from the game, and after the game, he was hit with a one-game suspension. It was a scary play that was exacerbated by the ESPN microphones capturing Dion’s groans as he lay on the court.
Arthur is not known as a dirty player, and his foul seemed out of frustration and laziness more than malice. Waiters, for one, did not call for Arthur to be suspended.
Dion on if Darrell Arthur should be suspended: "No. I don't want nobody to be suspended. He probably got a family. He needs his money"
— Dave McMenamin (@mcten) November 8, 2014
Waiters stayed in the game, split the free throws, and went right back to the bucket and drew another foul on the very next play. He’s tough, and he wasn’t about to be dissuaded by one hard foul. Dion penetrates very well, and drawing fouls is a useful skill.
The next couple quarters were mostly good for Dion on both ends of the floor, with a couple bad plays sprinkled in. Here are some of the bad ones, just to give you an idea of what we’re talking about:
Dion gets the pass from LeBron James, goes around a Tristan Thompson screen, and Nuggets center Timofey Mozgov switches onto him. This is an ideal chance for Dion to drive past a slow defender, force help, and find the open man. Mike Miller is waiting in the far corner, and Kevin Love flashes to the left wing.
Instead, Dion takes a few dribbles and launches a contested 21-foot jumper. He’ll make some of these—he shot 43 percent from between 16-23 feet last season—but a made basket does not equal prudent shot selection. These shots should be avoided unless the shot clock is about to expire or the basketball is about to explode.
Dion is guarding Danilo Gallinari. Gallinari slips a screen, and Dion does a bit of pointing. Randy Foye hits Gallinari in the paint, Tristan Thompson helps, Gallinari drops it off to Jusuf Nurkič, and the Nuggets get an easy dunk.
Perhaps this play was indicative of the Cavs’ unfamiliarity with their defensive strategy, but it looks like this was all on Dion. He abandoned Gallinari, but didn’t switch onto another player, occupy another chunk of floor space, or dive to contest Nurkič. Not good, as the Cavs’ post-play body language indicates.
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I do not mean to pile on Dion, as that pile is growing taller by the day, and I am afraid of heights. More important is that he played well in Denver. He scored 17 points in 24 minutes on a decent 51% true shooting. He only had one assist, but he moved the ball well. He hit Mike Miller for a corner three, and had some decisive passes out of the pick and roll.
The play of the game, however, came with just under four minutes to go. Denver had hung around and cut the lead to six. The Pepsi Center crowd was getting into it, and there was at least a whiff of hope for the Nuggets. Denver had the ball with a chance to shrink the lead even more. Then this happened:
Dion jumped the passing lane, got the steal, and finished on the break. He played good defense on the ensuing Nugget possession, which ended in a turnover. Then he knocked down a jumper on the Cavs’ next possession to effectively ice the game. This is all that anyone could hope for out of Dion Waiters. He earned kudos from LeBron and said the right things after the game.
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Alas, the bizarre stories were not done. When questioned Sunday about his religion and missing the national anthem in Utah, Dion reversed field and said that he didn’t miss the anthem because of religious reasons, but because his pregame routine took longer than usual.2
Question: Why didn’t you make it out for the anthem Wednesday night?
Waiters: I went in the back for my normal routine, what I normally do. It just happened to take longer than what I expected. I missed the one time and this happened. I’m not worrying about it. It was just a big miscommunication.
Question: You’re saying your routine took longer and that’s fine, but you invoked religion the other night.
Waiters: No, I didn’t.
Question: You never brought up religion in a quote?
Waiters: No.
Waiters and Haynes revisited the topic Saturday. It turns out that prayer and meditation is part of Waiters’s pregame routine. Haynes echoed Waiters in saying that the story was a miscommunication.
When I asked if he planned to continue his pregame ritual, I meant did he plan on skipping the national anthem from here on out. He said he was under the impression that I was asking if he would continue his prayer and meditation before games.
Fair enough.
Waiters reiterated that he would be present during the national anthem. He called it a “simple miscommunication” and added that he’s looking forward to moving past this situation.
Only one thing is certain: This is a weird story. It would be an easy one to blow up more than it already has been.
Perhaps the voice that we should listen to most is not that of Waiters, but of head coach David Blatt. Blatt has had a lot thrown at him in his first couple regular season NBA weeks, but seems to be keeping a cool head amidst the scuttlebutt. From Joe Vardon’s NEOMG story:
Blatt said Sunday he talked to Waiters and “a little too much has been made out of [Waiters’s religion and missing the national anthem].”
“Dion will be out for the national anthem on a daily basis and we’re ready to move forward from there,” Blatt said.
The Cavs have 77 regular season games to go. More weird stories are bound to come out over the next six months. Dion may well be the center of some of them.
We knew these Cavs would be entertaining, didn’t we?
When he is either named to his first All-Star team or suddenly playing in China, we will be able to point to this weekend as the one during which we were treated to everything that Dion Waiters has to offer. The good and the bad, the mundane and the bizarre, on-court and off-, were all on display before, during, and after the Cleveland Cavaliers’ game against the Denver Nuggets.
The peculiarities were already underway after the Cavs’ losses in Utah and Portland: Dion said he was still finding his way and that catching-and-shooting wasn’t his game. He was absent during the national anthem in Utah.
Those storylines were mere prelude to everything that would happen Friday night.
Shortly before tip-off in Denver, Northeast Ohio Media Group’s Chris Haynes published a story saying that Dion is Muslim, that he missed the national anthem in Utah for that reason, and that he may skip future anthems.
Wait, what??
This is America, land of religious freedom, so the religion itself is no issue. It just rang strange for this story to come out 10 minutes before a game, and in Dion’s third NBA season. If he is indeed Muslim, he kept it a secret until Friday. The only slices of internet I could find connecting Dion to Islam were a Facebook status and a tweet, from 2013 and 2011, respectively: