Philadelphia 76ers: Is Dion Waiters Playoff Caliber?

Dion Waiters has been on a playoff team in two of his four NBA seasons. Is he playoff caliber, or does he get lucky with what teams he is on?

Dion Waiters. For Philadelphia 76ers fans over the last few days, that name brings up feelings of excitement and hopefulness, (that the Sixers will pursue Waiters) or it brings up feelings of despair and hopefulness (that the Sixers don’t pursue Waiters).

Waiters, who is now an unrestricted free agent since the Oklahoma City Thunder rescinded their qualifying offer to him, recently put up a photo on Instagram with the caption “#TrustTheProcess.” That saying has been the mantra of the Philadelphia 76ers fanbase over the past few seasons, as they went through three straight years of tough losing with the hope that it would all pay off with high draft picks and championship competition in future seasons.

People close to Waiters did say that the slogan was one that Waiters and his training coach used when things got tough, but still, it brings up feelings of the Sixers pursuing Waiters.

It looks as if the Sixers are done with free agency for the year, but if the executive team really likes Waiters, there’s reason to believe they would pursue him, with tons of money left to spend before they reach the salary cap.

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Waiters seems to be an attractive target to some possibly because his name has been placed alongside star-caliber NBA players. Kyrie Irving, LeBron James, Russell Westbrook, Kevin Durant. Those three players were all teammates of Waiters, and because of that, Waiters was more in the limelight than he possibly should have been. Some fans should look into Waiters a bit more before just putting him on this pedestal because of who he’s been surrounded by up to this point in his career.

Waiters has been on a playoff team in two of his four NBA seasons (he was traded by the Cleveland Cavaliers before they reached the playoffs, but still was a part of that team) and because of that is often viewed as a playoff player. That may be a myth, however, and he may be riding the wave that his teammates started for him. Waiters may not be a playoff-type of player after all.

The only season that Waiters got playoff action, however, was this past year. And in that season, waiters only started in 15 games for the Thunder.

Per game in the playoffs, Waiters averaged 8.4 points, 2.6 rebounds, and 2.3 assists in 27 minutes per game. He shot above 40 percent from the field and 37 percent from beyond the 3-point line.

All of that equates to 11.1 points, 3.4 rebounds, and 3.1 assists per 36 minutes. To be completely honest, those numbers do not seem attractive to me, and although Waiters sunk a fair amount of his shots in the playoffs, I can’t justify the Sixers going after Waiters with those types of numbers.

Looking at what the Sixers already passed up on this offseason, they didn’t pursue Allen Crabbe with much zeal. Crabbe, per 36 minutes in the 2015-16 playoffs (of course, since the Portland Trail Blazers were eliminated earlier than the Thunder the sample size is smaller) Crabbe scored 12.5 points, pulled in 3.8 rebounds, and dished out 1.8 assists. Crabbe out-does Waiters in two categories, and falls short in the assisting category, but not by a whole lot.

Now, let’s look at who the Sixers signed and their most recent playoff statistics per 36 minutes. For this, I’m only going to use Gerald Henderson and Jerryd Bayless’s statistics, since Sergio Rodriguez has been overseas for the last few years. Henderson’s most recent playoff year was this year, and Bayless’s was the year prior.

On average, these two put up 11.7 points, 5.0 rebounds, and 4.0 assists per game. Comparing that to Waiters’ per 36 minutes stats, they are about the same in the scoring category, but do more to help the team out as a whole. It seems as if Waiters — and I’ve noticed this just from watching him, not just looking at statistics — wants to score, and isn’t locked into a team mindset.

I believe Waiters is a good basketball player, but he’s not great. He has some solid experience, especially in the playoffs, but much of that is thanks to his teammates who pushed his team to the playoffs, not to Waiters. I feel as if Waiters is a solid role-player on a competitive team, but if you put him on the Sixers where he is going to be asked to lead, he’s not going to live up to the type of paycheck he will be receiving.

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The Sixers should stay away from Waiters in an effort to stay away from signing players just because they’re a buzz-word name. What they’ve done in free agency thus far is fine, and signing Waiters would only make it worse.