{"id":29305,"date":"2020-03-05T18:43:07","date_gmt":"2020-03-05T23:43:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonprobasketball.com\/?p=29305"},"modified":"2020-03-05T18:43:07","modified_gmt":"2020-03-05T23:43:07","slug":"dion-waiters-signs-with-the-los-angeles-lakers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2020\/03\/05\/dion-waiters-signs-with-the-los-angeles-lakers\/","title":{"rendered":"Dion Waiters Signs With the Los Angeles Lakers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>NBA free agent <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/w\/waitedi01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dion Waiters<\/a><\/strong> has agreed to sign with the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprobasketball.com\/nba-teams\/los-angeles-lakers\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> for the remainder of the 2019-2020 NBA season, per The Athletic&#8217;s Shams Charania.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Los Angeles Lakers Sign Dion Waiters<\/strong><\/h2>\n<h3><strong>Rough Start to the Year<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Waiters has been the talk of the media this season, but for all the wrong reasons. He started off the season with the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprobasketball.com\/nba-teams\/miami-heat\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Miami Heat<\/a> on suspension for violating team policies. This included various social media posts degrading teammates, among other things. He then was suspended again for taking an edible on the team plane. Eventually, he made his first appearance with the Heat on January 24th, scoring his season-high 14 points.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Free agent Dion Waiters has agreed on a deal with the Los Angeles Lakers for the remainder of the season, sources tell <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TheAthleticNBA?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@TheAthleticNBA<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Stadium?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@Stadium<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ShamsCharania\/status\/1235700684638601216?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">March 5, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>At the trade deadline, Waiters was traded to the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprobasketball.com\/nba-teams\/memphis-grizzlies\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Memphis Grizzlies<\/a>. This deal included his teammates <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/w\/winslju01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Justise Winslow<\/a><\/strong> and <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/j\/johnsja01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">James Johnson<\/a><\/strong>. The Grizzlies reached a buy-out agreement with Waiters, and he hit the free-agent market. After a workout and meeting with the Lakers, he agreed to sign with them for the remainder of the season. He and his agent Rich Paul have been made clear that the Lakers reserve the right to release them if this doesn&#8217;t go well.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>What He Brings<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Although Waiters has had some rough patches in his career, especially this year, he isn&#8217;t a bad player. Waiters is a proven scorer in the league and he provides a strong bench presence that the Lakers desperately need. Waiters can be a source of instant offense when things aren&#8217;t going well for the Lakers&#8217; two stars, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/d\/davisan02.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Anthony Davis<\/a><\/strong> and <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/j\/jamesle01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">LeBron James<\/a><\/strong>. He averages 13.2 points per game for his career.<\/p>\n<p>Waiters can fill the hole in the Lakers&#8217; bench unit, providing fresh legs for the playoffs. He can prove to be useful during this time in the season, as there are many NBA Finals contenders in the Western Conference. The Lakers have been in desperate need of another guard that can handle a ball-handling and scoring load on the second unit. Time will tell, but for now, it seems that Waiters has found a good fit with the Lakers.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<br \/>\n<a id=\"1hYfjws1SxNzhKI99Yu_ag\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/889262652\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'1hYfjws1SxNzhKI99Yu_ag',sig:'tsObmny-qm9X7rMPtTiEsFdgmxC1HArORiTKGxdMHgQ=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'889262652',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NBA free agent Dion Waiters has agreed to sign with the Los Angeles Lakers for the remainder of the 2019-2020 NBA season, per The Athletic&#8217;s Shams Charania. Los Angeles Lakers Sign Dion Waiters Rough Start to the Year Waiters has been the talk of the media this season, but for all the wrong reasons. He [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3150,"featured_media":29307,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_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":[26,1608,32,16,62],"tags":[240,726,1903,1100,325,38,152,207],"class_list":["post-29305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lakers","category-basketball","category-grizzlies","category-heat","category-nba","tag-anthony-davis","tag-dion-waiters","tag-heat","tag-james-johnson","tag-justise-winslow","tag-lebron-james","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-memphis-grizzlies"],"modified_by":"Chase Gage","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29305","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\/3150"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}