Dion Waiters Sinks Shot at Buzzer, Plunges His Own Reality into Hearts of Golden State

What is The Dion Waiters Story? Drafted seemingly too high a half-decade ago, he showed a flash of initial technical brilliance, untempered by experience or judgment. He moves forward and nothing changes. His sloppiness and comprehensive overestimation of his abilities make him a tactical liability.

Soon, he was a malcontent, cast aside by LeBron James for the sin of pride, a self-belief, beautiful and overflowing in his heart, that wildly exceeded his true talent and was especially apparent when sidled next to one of the most gifted basketball players who has ever lived. He was OK on the Thunder, but when Oklahoma City went to re-sign him, he told them to buzz off. He was looking for a bigger role, even if his neo-sixth man position was the first time he was even functional. OKC told him to kick rocks. A free agency period where everyone became spectacularly wealthy—even Evan Turner—left him behind, freezing in the wilderness. He ended up with the Heat in Miami, who have been terrible, for a mere pittance. He shoots 39 percent from the field. A world laughs, and disparages him for his hubris.

But what if we just don't understand? What if Dion is in a psychological and spiritual place we simply cannot relate to, living a life that none of us can even come close to understanding? What if this story the world tells is NOTHING to him? What if he is operating on a basketball plane unfathomable, what if he is searching for something bigger than money, bigger than victory, bigger than anything our simple, four-dimensional minds can grasp?

And so, we consider Dion notching a 33-point, five-assist night against the back-to-back Florida Weekend Warriors and topping it off with a beautiful and perfect three-pointer right in Klay Thompson's weirdly massive face. Everything about this shot is tactically terrible. He waves off a pick, like, the second he crosses the half-court line. He unleashes a few WILDLY ostentatious between-the-legs dribbles on his way to the spot where he has already decided he will shoot. You can see Tyler Johnson try to change his mind very briefly. Dion doesn't even see him.

He is too busy mixing a toxic spirit brew for Thompson, this boring wooden man whose dull, complementary competence might fuel the Warriors' championship pedigree but violates everything Dion believes in, his truest idea of basketball purity: I am better than this clown. He whispers quietly to himself as he grinds the ball between his legs and dances behind the three-point. The context around believing this does not occur to him for even a second. It is uniquely unimportant to him.

He rises up with a bizarre-looking fadey-hitchey jumper. The arc is fucking enormous. It sinks. The Robot is dismayed, his hands rest behind his head in frustration and resigned exhaustion. His game, so precise, so controlled, demolished by an agent of chaos, one who seeks only the rush of this specific moment, the rare thrill of personally powering you and your team to glory. Dion strikes an indelible pose, right in his former teammate Kevin Durant's line of sight, basking in the warm light of this moment.

This is perfection. Dion would not blandly jog around cross screens for all the money and titles in the world if it meant he would have to give up this moment. It does not matter that it does not usually work. The beauty and purity of this nonsense is as compelling a reason to watch sports as a thousand Super Bowls.