The Sixer Sense
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The Philadelphia 76ers Shouldn’t Sign Dion Waiters

By Kevin Kolodziej

Jan 17, 2016; Oklahoma City, OK, USA; Oklahoma City Thunder guard Dion Waiters (3) reacts after a play against the Miami Heat during the fourth quarter at Chesapeake Energy Arena. Mandatory Credit: Mark D. Smith-USA TODAY Sports
Jan 17, 2016; Oklahoma City, OK, USA; Oklahoma City Thunder guard Dion Waiters (3) reacts after a play against the Miami Heat during the fourth quarter at Chesapeake Energy Arena. Mandatory Credit: Mark D. Smith-USA TODAY Sports /
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On Monday night, Dion Waiters posted a Philadelphia 76ers-related hashtag as a caption to an Instagram post, but the organization would undoubtedly benefit from keeping the Philly-native away from the City of Brotherly Love.

Trust The Process.

Those are three words that have been synonymous with the Philadelphia 76ers’ fan base over the past three seasons, and on Tuesday night, the worst possible free agent captioned an Instagram post with “#TRUSTTHEPROCESS“.

That player: Dion (insert your favorite expletive here) Waiters.

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Now, I understand that the Sixers absolutely need help in their backcourt, specifically at the shooting guard position, but Waiters is not the answer. It would honestly be better to go into the upcoming season with a giant question mark at the two-guard than definitively rely on Waiters.

Yeah, he’s that bad.

Waiters is a shooting guard that can’t shoot (he makes just 44 percent of his 2-pointers and 33 percent of his 3-pointers over his four-year NBA career). He consistently makes poor decisions with the basketball in his hands and is an average defender at best.

On the bright side, Keith Pompey of the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that a source close to Waiters said this about the hashtag caption:

“That doesn’t have anything to do with the Sixers. That’s a mantra that he and his trainer have made for a while. When things weren’t doing well at Syracuse, they would say ‘trust the process.’  Whenever he goes through a tough time, he says ‘trust the process.’  Right now, he’s trusting the process of free agency.”

We can only hope that’s the truth.

I feel like every time I’ve seen Waiters touch a basketball in his NBA career, it’s the same story: aimlessly dribble around, unsuccessfully try to go isolation on his defender and chuck up a bad shot that ricochet’s off the back of the rim as the shot clock expires. Or, he tries to get to the rim and just can’t, resulting in either a block or a missed layup.

The below video is a prime example of both of these scenarios in a span of nine seconds.

Waiters even tends to miss wide-open layups from time to time, too.

Example A:

Example B:

For crying out loud, the only time in his career he’s been legitimately motivated was Valentine’s Day 2014 in the (meaningless) Rising Stars Challenge of All-Star Weekend, when Waiters and Tim Hardaway Jr. went head-to-head for like two minutes.

It also seems like distributing the basketball just doesn’t register as a viable option for Waiters, almost as if he doesn’t understand the concept of passing.

Then, every time he doesn’t get the ball on an offensive possession, he displays poor body language (tilts head back, throws arms up in disbelief and grunts) as if he’s the best scoring option on the team and deserves the ball at all times despite being teammates with superstars like Kyrie Irving, LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook throughout his career. Even with players of such a high caliber on his team, it’s like he still honestly believes he’s the top scoring-threat on the floor.

In a nutshell, Waiters is essentially a less-entertaining and worse-shooting version of Nick Young.

Yes, the Sixers absolutely need to address their lack of talented guards, but there is no way they can fill that void with a player like Waiters; he’s quite literally a worst-case scenario.

Next: Does Silence on Dion Waiters Mean He Won't Be A Sixer?

At this point, I still think it’s unlikely that the Sixers actually do sign him, but any time a player throws out “Trust The Process” on their social media platform, I can’t help but to raise an eyebrow.

Simply put, Waiters just isn’t a good NBA player. And until he officially signs with another team, I can’t help but to be somewhat nervous about the possibility of the Philadelphia-native signing with his hometown team.