Dion Waiters isn’t about to do the Oklahoma City Thunder any favors.
Financial favors, that is.
The deadline for NBA teams to sign first-round picks from 2012 to contract extensions has come to pass, and Dion Waiters, like many others, did not reach an agreement with his incumbent team. That doesn’t mean he’ll leave Oklahoma City in restricted free agency. To the contrary, he’s on record extolling his time with the Thunder, often at the unsubtle expense of his stint with the Cleveland Cavaliers. Besides, general manager Sam Presti has the right to match any offer he receives from another team this summer, just as he did when the Portland Trail Blazers threw a $70 million sheet Enes Kanter’s way this past July.
Not that Presti didn’t try to lock up Waiters for the long haul already. There were initial reports that the two sides talked turkey before the season even started, and per Basketball Insiders’ Steve Kyler, the Thunder, it seems, put a concrete offer on the table, only to see it rebuffed by Waiters’ camp:
The Thunder seemed open to an extension with guard Dion Waiters, but ultimately his camp is hoping for the ballooning salary cap in the NBA to create a better market for Waiters. His side ultimately passed on a Thunder friendly deal.
This isn’t really of any surprise. The impending salary-cap boom has made for a crazy extension market.
Players have little reason to re-up now unless they truly believe they can’t get more next summer, or unless they’re team is slinging the max allowed. Likewise, teams don’t have much of an incentive to sign players now, unless they know they’re getting a discount, or unless the player in question is unequivocally worth a max deal—and even then, it’s better to wait until July, so that they cheapen the player’s cap hit leading into free agency, thus creating more flexibility until he actually puts pen to paper on a new deal.
Anyhow, Waiters is betting that he’ll fetch more on the semi-open market, perhaps from a team with more money to throw around than the Thunder, or one that’s desperate to nab a consolation prize after swinging and missing on the first couple tiers of free agents. It’s a solid gamble for someone going on 24 years old who hasn’t yet actualized his full potential. But it’s still a gamble.
The market for volume chuckers is weird. We saw both Lou Williams and J.R. Smith get lowballed over the summer. Waiters may even be less valuable, since he’s a comparable passer and not at all skilled at playing off the ball. He’s best used in that Jamal Crawford-style role, and even that might be selling Waiters too high.
Then again, teams will have to spend their money on someone. And that someone could be Waiters. He has the rest of this season to raise his stock, and even if he doesn’t, next summer’s free-agent-feeding frenzy bodes well for anyone in search of a contract, even those not worth a lucrative one.
