MIAMI _ The victory tour has taken Dion Waiters from putting pen to paper at AmericanAirlines Arena to a seat alongside Colin Cowherd to a place at the table with Skip Bayless.
The prize is the four-year, $52 million free-agent contract that will nearly triple what the uber-confident guard earned in his first five NBA seasons.
Soon enough, though, Miami Heat President Pat Riley will let Waiters know he hasn't won anything yet.
Because when Pat Riley sticks his neck out for you, he expects nothing less than body and soul.
Particularly body.
Lost amid Waiters' breakout moments last season was that there were a few things even more limited than his 46 appearances over the 82-game schedule.
He ranked 114th in NBA net rating, 145th in player-impact estimate, 149th in player-efficiency rating, a PER standing that put him four spots below Ish Smith, with his 14.61 rating below the 15.0 of an "average" player.
The next step at his new going rate has to be consistency.
And making it to the court more than 56 percent of the time.
"When he came in for training camp," Riley said during his summer media briefing, "he simply was not ready for what we're about. And I think he had some groin issues and some hamstring issues in training camp, just soreness. And then he had a minor sprain and missed a couple of games and then he tore the groin that put him out a long time. And it took him a long time to come back from that."
Even as the weight was shed, as the body fat dropped, a balky left ankle got in the way, including during the games when needed most, at the close of the 41-41 season.
But it was what Riley saw inside the numbers, literally in the middle of Waiters' season, that convinced him that four years at $52 million made sense.
"From I think it was January the 17th to March the 17th, he had the run," Riley said. "And inside of that run we won 13 in a row, where he was healthy, he was in shape and he was playing very confidently. He averaged 18 points, shot 48 percent from the field and over 40 percent from three.
"He needs to get his free-throw percentage up. I can't believe he's not an 80 percent free-throw shooter. He shot 66 percent (actually .646) on the year. So we just want to make him more efficient."
And then came the Riley challenge, because there always is a Riley challenge, whether he is making you prove your worth or whether he has upped the salary ante.
"What he needs to do during the summer is realize it isn't just running sprints or running steps to get cardio shape," he said, "that he needs to go from his knees to his core in a rehab-type of conditioning, which our guys are good for. So I think he'll train a little bit differently. We know his body now."
It is not unusual for Riley to issue weight and body-fat targets to players in the offseason, as he did with Waiters, James Johnson and Wayne Ellington upon their 2016 arrivals.
For Waiters, though, the next metric from Riley is more tangible: to be alongside Goran Dragic often enough to make sure that a playoff berth this time isn't lost through a tiebreaker.
"The goal, I said to him, is 70, 80 games is what you want to play," Riley said. "It used to be a badge of honor to play 82. Guys would be celebrated for playing 82. I mean, I coached A.C. Green in 587 games straight. He played with broken fingers and everything.
"But that can't happen anymore today, because coaches will just rest players now. But getting your players to play 70 games a year healthy, that's the goal for Dion and I think that he'll be more consistent."
Because of that, Riley put his money were the statistics weren't.
"He's an end-of-the-game, end-of-the-shot-clock player," Riley said. "A lot of times you can't find those kinds of guys."
