Shooting guard Dion Waiters reached a two-year, $5.9 million deal with the Miami Heat on Monday after his former club, Oklahoma City Thunder, chose to withdraw his qualifying offer and make him an unrestricted free agent this summer.
The 24-year-old Waiters spent the last two years with the Thunder as their primary off-the-bench scorer. Last season, he helped OKC reach the Western Conference Finals, but the team lost to the Golden State Warriors in seven games after building a 3-1 series lead.
He averaged 9.8 points, 2.6 rebounds, and 2.0 assists in 27.6 minutes per night during the regular season while producing numbers of 8.4 points, 2.6 boards, and 2.3 assists in 18 games in the playoffs, suiting up for 27.3 minutes per game.
Waiters just finished the final year of his 4-year, $16.8 million contract signed with the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2012 and inherited by the Thunder when he was traded to them in January of 2015. He earned $5.1 million in the final season before he became a restricted free agent this month.
OKC then gave him a $6.8 million qualifying offer, which he chose not to accept, but the Thunder rescinded it before the July 18 deadline, making Waiters an unrestricted free agent.
With the former Syracuse standout available, Miami then swooped in to snag him to try to somehow compensate for the loss of Dwyane Wade in the team's shooting guard position.
Sun Sentinel reported that the Heat used their $2.9 million salary-cap exception for the first year of Waiters' contract, which is "granted to teams that had previously utilized salary-cap space to fill out their roster".
Team president Pat Riley recently said that they are planning to use the said cap exception by February or March next year, but his crew may have realized that getting Waiters at this point may be too good to pass up.
Meanwhile, the Miami Herald indicated that "Waiters is expected to be the front-runner to replace Wade" as the squad's starting shooting guard even with competition coming from Tyler Johnson, Josh Richardson, and journeyman Wayne Ellington.
Waiters had earned a somewhat negative repute throughout the years as a selfish player that takes "ill-advised shots", but his newfound teammates do not think so.
"Dion's a great player," said Richardson during a community event he and Johnson attended also on Monday. "He brings aggressiveness on both ends, big time scoring ability. I'm excited to get on the court with him."