{"id":111624,"date":"2024-12-10T23:49:46","date_gmt":"2024-12-11T04:49:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=111624"},"modified":"2024-12-10T23:49:46","modified_gmt":"2024-12-11T04:49:46","slug":"cavs-pick-dion-waiters-truth-kyrie-irving-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/12\/10\/cavs-pick-dion-waiters-truth-kyrie-irving-fight\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Cavs Pick Reveals Truth About Kyrie Irving Fight"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former No. 4 pick <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/w\/waitedi01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dion Waiters<\/a> is one of those NBA stories that makes fans scratch their heads. Once a <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/college-sports\/basketball\/recruiting\/player\/_\/id\/43364\/dion-waiters\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">top-15 high school recruit<\/a>, Waiters came off the bench in his lone season at Syracuse, much to his surprise. When he declared for the NBA Draft, he looked like a sixth man with starting potential, landing with the Cleveland Cavaliers.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">\u201cAddress me as Champ Cheese\u201d<br \/>\nHBD <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/dionwaiters3?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@DionWaiters3<\/a> <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/ClSzcBIVMK\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/ClSzcBIVMK<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Ballislife.com (@Ballislife) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Ballislife\/status\/1337171133259452418?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">December 10, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>If the Cavs didn\u2019t already have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/i\/irvinky01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kyrie Irving<\/a>, who they selected first overall in the previous draft, history might have been different.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, Waiters and Irving eventually engaged in a tug of war that led to a the two <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/1935435\/2020\/07\/18\/lebron-james-jr-smith-and-dion-waiters-together-again-and-for-the-first-time\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">seeming to dislike each other<\/a>, per The Athletic. The situation eventually <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nba.com\/bulls\/news\/sam-smiths-nba-news-and-notes-11252013.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reached a tipping point<\/a> after a 30-point loss to the San Antonio Spurs in Nov. 2013, with renowned NBA.com reporter Sam Smith claiming that Waiters \u201cbeat up Kyrie Irving in a team meeting.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>Former Cavs Pick Dion Waiters Reveals Truth About Kyrie Irving Fight<\/h2>\n<p>\u201cNever fought,\u201d Waiters tells the <em>Only The Trill Survive Podcast<\/em>. \u201cWe never fought ever. He\u2019ll tell you right now. We never fought ever. That&#8217;s my dog.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Dion Waiters talk about his NBA career, Lebron James, Clearing Kyrie Irving rumors, Philly and more\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/k_5s03npNv0?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Like we may not always see eye-to-eye when you\u2019re on the court. You could be frustrated. You could be losing. It could be anything, bro. But me and bro never had a physical altercation, not one time.<\/p>\n<p>I can put that on my life. On my kids you feel me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Waiters then goes on to explain what really transpired. Rather than Irving, it was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/t\/thomptr01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Tristan Thompson<\/a> who he ended up exchanging words with.<\/p>\n<p>Thompson was selected fourth overall in the 2011 NBA Draft, just three picks behind Irving. On that fateful night against the Spurs, he had finished with five points, nine rebounds, and two assists after going 1-8 from the field.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMe and Tristan argued,\u201d Waiters explains. \u201cTristan Thompson, that\u2019s my dog. That made us closer. It\u2019s just frustration. You getting blown out by 30 (points). We competitive. We men. This is how we gonna feed our family.<\/p>\n<p>So it\u2019s like, we just called a team meeting. Things happened. I just had a lot of frustration and it just came out. I felt a lot better after it came out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Waiters didn\u2019t go into much detail about what he said. However, given that he came off the bench in favor of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/g\/geeal01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Alonzo Gee<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/d\/dellama01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Matthew Dellavedova<\/a> \u2014two undrafted players \u2014he may have had an opinion about his role. Especially as Gee went scoreless in 16 minutes that night while he put up 11 points in 20.<\/p>\n<p>If so, it didn\u2019t change much for Waiters, as he continued to come off the bench until Irving suffered an injury in March. However, once he reclaimed his starting spot, he didn\u2019t look back. The Philadelphia native averaged 21.2 points and 4.2 assists per game on 45.7 percent shooting from the field through the end of the season.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s no wonder that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/j\/jamesle01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">LeBron James<\/a> singled Waiters out as one of the players <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/nba\/2014\/07\/11\/lebron-james-cleveland-cavaliers\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">he wanted to help<\/a> \u201celevate\u201d when <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/10\/31\/should-lebron-james-retire-with-cavs-or-lakers\/\" target=\"_self\">he returned to<\/a> the Cavs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former No. 4 pick Dion Waiters is one of those NBA stories that makes fans scratch their heads. Once a top-15 high school recruit, Waiters came off the bench in his lone season at Syracuse, much to his surprise. When he declared for the NBA Draft, he looked like a sixth man with starting potential, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5008,"featured_media":111628,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9,1608,62,556],"tags":[726,406,38,98,1040],"class_list":["post-111624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cavaliers","category-basketball","category-nba","category-nba-draft","tag-dion-waiters","tag-kyrie-irving","tag-lebron-james","tag-nba-draft","tag-tristan-thompson"],"modified_by":"Quenton S Albertie","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5008"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111624"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111624\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":111629,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111624\/revisions\/111629"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}