Report: Lakers Guard Considering Retirement

Former Los Angeles Lakers guard Dion Waiters won his first ring two months ago and he considers retiring. Yes, you read that right. Waiters may call it quits as an NBA player. NBA experts read between the lines, and Waiters got us all confused.

The guard showed off his ring in a recent Instagram Live session. The franchise sent him the ring right after the ring ceremony.

“They think I’m playing. I been contemplating it though—about retiring,” Waiters said. “It’s the politics for me. Game-wise, we know what’s up. I just can’t do the politics, man. We ain’t going over that water. I’ll retire before that.”

Waiters was selected with the No.4 overall pick in the 2012 NBA Draft out of Syracuse. He had some struggles throughout his career but then won a title with the Lakers. Waiters saw action in seven regular-season game and was averaging 11.9 points per night. Lakers head coach Frank Vogel changed the rotation and Waiters played 7.6 minutes and averaged 2 points per game. His regular-season numbers showed everyone that Waiters is a contributor.

The guard spent time with the Cleveland Cavaliers, Oklahoma City Thunder, Miami Heat and Lakers, and had career averages of 13.1 points per game. He was part of a big incident in Miami, and ended up with a big suspension on his back. Waiters addressed one of his incidents in a Players’ Tribune article.

“The plane incident in Miami?” he wrote. “It’s on me. I own that. It was idiotic on my behalf — point-blank, period. What’s crazy is, my whole life I been a leader. I’m not a follower. Pat [Riley] knows me. He knows I don’t do drugs. But sometimes when you’re going through dark times, you can fall trap to things you’d never do in your right mind.”

The former Lakers guard enters free agency

Waiters had a key role with the Lakers in 2019-20. The Lakers needed depth at their guard position and Waiters helped them with his ball-handling skills. However, NBA teams haven’t shown much interest in his skills. Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun Sentinel believes that Waiters may be a late pick-up for any NBA team.

“More likely to be added during the course of the season than into an already crowded training camp,” Winderman wrote. “It could wind up playing out as it did last season, with Dion Waiters and J.R. Smith as the emergency scorers to be named later by some deficient team.”

Things may take a different turn for the talented veteran. He is a 29-year-old with a lot of juice in his body.