The Cavs are now 1-3 and panic is beginning to set up. After a loss to the Jazz last night, David Blatt needs to rethink his lineup and rotations. He has already experimented with starting Shawn Marion over Dion Waiters, but Blatt may have more changes for Waiters.
He’d like for Dion, why thrives on slashing to the basket and creating his own shot, to focus of catch-and-shoot 3s and defense. Since Syracuse, when we’ve come to know Waiters’ game, he’s never been solely a spot-up shooter and he doesn’t feel that is his game.
It has been made clear to me in recent days by Cavs deep thinkers they’d like Waiters to really concentrate on two areas: defending like crazy and shooting catch-and-shoot 3-pointers. Waiters’ catch-and-shoot numbers last season were much better than I would’ve predicted: He made 42 percent of his catch-and-shoot 3-point attempts last season (72-for-173). That ranked 35th in the league (minimum 100 attempts), which was higher than Kevin Love (40 percent) and [Kyrie] Irving (32 percent).
So when Waiters stayed behind after the team’s morning shootaround Tuesday and worked out for another 40 minutes, after the bus and rest of the players were long gone, it wasn’t surprising to watch him working primarily on catch-and-shoot 3-pointers. Yet when I asked him about focusing on that this season, he dismissed it.
“That’s not my game,” he said. “I can do it, but you know what I’m effective at: pick-and-roll and things like that.”
H/T: Akron Beacon Journal
