The Heat’s Waiters discusses the tough road he took after ankle surgery: ‘It sucked bad’
The recovery from invasive ankle surgery is not supposed to be easy. But Dion Waiters did not expect it to be this hard.
“Being honest. This s--- sucked,” Waiters when asked about his 11-month recovery from Jan. 22 surgery to repair instability and a preexisting navicular bone fracture in his left ankle.
“It sucked bad. Just every day, same thing over and over, you’re trying to get back, get your body right. It was grueling man. I’m not even going to lie to you and say it was easy. It was terrible, man.”
The good news for Waiters is the end looks near, although he is listed as out for Thursday’s home game against the Rockets. The 27-year-old Heat guard is getting closer to a return after he was cleared for full-contact work Wednesday for the first time since surgery.
But after a recovery process that challenged Waiters physically and mentally, he knows it’s going to take time to get back to where he was two seasons ago, when he averaged 18.4 points on 46.7 percent shooting to go with 4.8 assists during the Heat’s 30-11 finish to 2016-17.
The recovery process even included a grueling workout with Heat president Pat Riley, who put a then-recovering James Johnson and Waiters through a tiring session of drills earlier this season.
“Iconic,” Johnson said when asked about going through a Riley-led workout. “You don’t see very many team presidents taking off the Armani and putting back on their coach’s gear, whistle and all that. It was hard work. But at the same time, man, it was one of the most honorable moments that me and Dion could have asked for.”
Then there were days that Waiters didn’t even want to get out of bed. It was enough of a hassle just to find a way to take a shower and play with his kids with a cast on his left foot.
“When you’re off your feet for six, seven months like I was, you know, it’s tough,” Waiters said. “You can’t really do nothing. Coming back, I knew it was going to be hard like this, every day you were going to have to grind it out, just grind out. The days when you wake up with attitude, but the end of the day, you just got to look at it as it could be a lot worse than this.
“So, the days that I didn’t feel like doing anything like that, I had to push through it, just knowing it was going to take me time to get my body back, that way I wanted it to be, and the way they wanted it to be. Like I said, man, it’s still a process, it’s still a thing you’ve got to work on.”
After starting the 2016-17 season at 222 pounds, Waiters said he got up to 239 pounds after surgery. He’s been able to drop most of that extra weight, though, as he’s down to 223 pounds and has met the Heat’s body-fat requirement.
Waiters expects to lose even more weight now that he’s practicing.
“When you can’t run, physically work out for six, seven months, knowing me and knowing my body, I knew I was going to gain weight,” Waiters said. “I knew it was going to be a grind getting back, even when I was eating right. I just know how my body operates with me, so I knew I was going to gain weight. But that’s the more joy you get out of it, just putting that work back in and you see, you see me know.”
With Waiters appearing heavier in photos, some criticized his weight on social media and even suggested that he was content after signing a four-year, $52 million contract with the Heat in the summer of 2017.
Waiters ignored all of it.
“I ain’t gonna lie to you, I don’t see it,” he said of social media critics. “It can’t be mental if you don’t see it. I’m just being honest. Sometimes I see certain things, but people can say what they want. I earn my [expletive]. So I can’t predict the future and the things that happen. Injuries happen.”
Now, the question is: When will Waiters return?
“It ain’t up to me. It’s up to the coach,” he said when asked that question. “So I just got to get out here and just get more reps, just get acclimated with the plays. I still remember them. It’s just about when I’m out there, just going through them now, just getting back accustomed to it, just getting back to that routine of practicing, the routine of shootaround and things like that. And hopefully man, sooner rather than later.”
Because as Waiters noted during his question-and-answer session with reporters following Wednesday’s practice, “Look, my game didn’t go nowhere.”
Waiters does return as a different man, though. This 11-month process taught him something about himself.
“That I’m a tough mother-effer,” he said. “It is tough, man, because I’ve never been through that before, just not being able to get up and just walk, just go to the bathroom, take a regular shower. You got to take a shower in a trash bag. You got to sit down. You can’t play with your kids how you want to. I would sit on the couch all day. It’s sucks man, it really does. I don’t wish that on anybody.
“Everybody knows I got the most confidence in the world. But just having that confidence, knowing when you get back, I’m still going to be able to do what I do, just be healthy now. I never wavered that or never questioned who I am as a person or a player. I kept telling myself, even days I didn’t feel like doing something, like, man, get through it, get through it. It’s going to be that much more gratifying once your accomplish all you do to get back.”
This story was originally published December 19, 2018 at 3:28 PM.
