Free-agent guard Dion Waiters has turned his one-year audition with the Miami Heat _ a season filled with bravado and big-moments shots _ into a four-year return engagement.
After signing for the Heat's $2.9 million exception when he found himself with limited options last summer, Waiters settled in as a backcourt complement to Goran Dragic, with the backcourt taking the "7-Eleven" nickname as a play on Dragic's and Waiters' numbers, with Waiters playfully noting how the team's ball-movement offense left them "always open."
It proved to be a breakout season for Waiters, after uneven stints with the Cleveland Cavaliers and Oklahoma City Thunder during the first four seasons of his career. He averaged 15.8 points, posting career bests with his .394 3-point shooting, 4.3 assist average and 3.3 rebounding average.
ESPN reported the new agreement with the Heat, with Basketball Insiders putting the four-year agreement at $52 million, which would mean a $12 million salary for the upcoming season.
The next challenge becomes displaying enough durability to push the Heat beyond last season's 41-41 lottery finish. Waiters missed 20 games early in the season with a groin tear, three at midseason with a sprained ankle, and then the season's final 13 games with another sprain of that ankle.
Waiters had been linked to interest from the Los Angeles Lakers and New York Knicks.
Waiters chronicled his desire to return to the Heat in an April essay at The Players' Tribune.
"Look, I know we fell one game short of the playoffs, and it kills me," he wrote. "If I hadn't gone down with an injury, I think we all know where we'd be right now.
"But you know what? The run this season was magical."
Waiters bypassed a $3 million 2017-18 option with the Heat to enter free agency on July 1. The NBA signing moratorium ends at noon Thursday, which is the earliest Waiters can be signed.
In that Players Tribune piece, Waiters said working under Heat President Pat Riley was transformative.
"When I got a call from Miami, I went down there and walked into the O.G. Pat Riley's office," he wrote. "It was damn near the best thing that's happened in my NBA career."
A primary lesson, Waiters said, was learning how to get into the type of condition the Heat demand from their players. Since the end of the season, Waiters offered before-and-after photos of his re-sculpted physique.
"When Pat said, 'world-class shape,' I thought it sounded cool," Waiters wrote, "but in my head, I was like, Yeah, I got this. I'm in world-class shape. You already know.
"So I show up for camp, and after one week, my body is shot. I was damn near throwing up in trash cans like in the movies. And I realized, You know what? Pat was not just talking that smooth talk. This Heat thing is the real deal."
