Waiters Island has repopulated so quickly!
Where will Kyrie Irving end up? It’s the question that has been dominating the second half of the NBA offseason, ever since it was reported that Irving had requested a trade from the Cleveland Cavaliers. The latest team name to appear in the ‘rumorsphere’ is the Miami Heat, who ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne mentioned on a recent Bleacher Report podcast.
Dion Waiters, who is coming off the best season of his career and re-signed with the Heat on a four-year, $52 million deal, was asked about the possibility of Irving coming to the Heat. He said “it would help,” but then he followed up with this incredible quote.
“There’s an alpha male over there already,” Waiters said in an interview with HipHopSince1987. “If you come there, we can boogie together.”
We all can and should enjoy that snippet of the quote, because that’s so Dion. But as he points out, there’s more to it. Waiters’ over-the-top confidence isn’t a front, but something he developed growing up in terrible circumstances.
“It would help. I’m not against that. Just know there’s an alpha male over there too in myself. I think that’s my biggest thing with everybody, ‘Oh he got irrational confidence…’ Man, I tell everybody, if I can make it from here, I can make it from anywhere. My mom got shot, my dad got shot. C’mon bro, there ain’t nothing that I haven’t seen. Why not? I need that confidence to get through. Every day I need that confidence to get by. It ain’t got nothin’ to do with ball. It’s who I am. It was instilled in me. But you know, there’s an alpha male over there already. If you come there, we can boogie together.”
Anyway, Irving and Waiters didn’t exactly get along well last time they were teammates, but perhaps there’s a new future ahead for them. Or perhaps not, and all this speculation really gets us is another sensational Dion quote. Either way, we come out as winners.