Dion Waiters opens up on ‘gummies’ incident, playing injured and his rocky end in Miami
Dion Waiters’ time with the Miami Heat started barreling toward an end last season. The wing served a one-game suspension for the first game of the year because of his behavior on the bench in the preseason, then a 10-game suspension for a more serious incident.
On a flight from Phoenix to Los Angeles earlier this season, Waiters had an alarming medical incident. “Gummies” were involved, reported Andy Slater, who hosts a radio show on WMEN. Waiters had a panic attack, ESPN reported, or maybe even a seizure, as Slater reported.
When Waiters’ suspension ended, he put out a generic statement apologizing to the Heat, president Pat Riley and the fans. On Monday, Waiters more fully told his side of the story with an article published at The Players Tribune.
“The plane incident in Miami?” Waiters wrote. “It’s on me.”
Waiters owned up to the incident, although he didn’t delve into specifics as to what exactly happened. He also denied having a seizure on the airplane.
Waiters explained he has battled depression for the last year and a half, and he was going through “dark times” at the time of the incident.
“It was idiotic on my behalf — point-blank, period,” Waiters wrote. “What’s crazy is, my whole life I been a leader. I’m not a follower. Pat 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.
“I never had a seizure, though. Ask the doctors. Ask my Heat teammates. They can speak on it. For that b.s. to come out, it ain’t right. I made a mistake, but for someone to leak that, and for my family to hear it? [Expletive] . It ain’t right.”
Waiters said one of the biggest challenges from the time was explaining what happened to his son. Dion Waiters Jr. is 6 — “going on damn near 30,” Waiters Sr. joked — and he was acutely aware of the reports and allegations.
“He’s on Google all day, typing my name. So when I got suspended, he was interrogating me like, ‘Dad, they said you were doing drugs. They said you had a seizure. They said you can’t play no more. What’s going on?’ I had to break it down for him in a way he could understand, like in his little cartoon movies.
“I said, ‘You know how there’s always a beginning, a middle and an end? In the beginning, it’s all good, right? Spider-Man is doing his thing. He’s discovering his superpowers. He’s chillin’. But in the middle, what happens? The hero always messes up. He gets knocked in the dirt. There’s always a sad part, right? Well, that’s where your dad’s been at. He made a mistake. He lost his superpowers for a minute. But it’s gonna be alright. We’re gonna make it through.’”
Playing through injuries
For Waiters, the challenges really started in 2016 and 2017, when he played through a foot injury as Miami made a furious playoff push. Waiters said he was playing on a broken foot until he finally had surgery in 2018. He missed a full year because of the surgery and finally returned out of shape, which began some of the acrimony.
“I played a year and a half on a broken foot, and you ain’t hear me crying,” Waiters said. “It was surgery or insoles, man. I picked the insoles because I was trying to get us to the playoffs. We knew what it was. I sacrificed my body for the Miami Heat, and I’d do it again. Hell yeah, I’d do it again. But my body just broke down to the point where I could only do so much in a day. Then I couldn’t keep the weight off no matter how much I tried. And then we all know what comes after that: ‘Dion’s fat. Dion’s out of shape. Dion don’t care.’”
Waiters ultimately played just three games for Miami this season — three straight games in January while the Heat was short-handed — and averaged 9.3 points on 38.5 percent shooting in 14.0 minutes per game. Miami dealt Waiters to the Memphis Grizzlies at the trade deadline in February and the Grizzlies waived him a few days later. Waiters signed with the Los Angeles Lakers in March, but never played before the NBA suspended its season because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Waiters said he’s still on good terms with Riley and owner Micky Arison, although he knew even before the season his time with the Heat was nearing an end.
“I still got love for Pat,” Waiters wrote. “Let’s put that on the record. Still got love for Pat, still got all the respect in the world for Micky Arison. When it was good it was good, you know? But even before this season, we knew it was over.”
This story was originally published April 20, 2020 at 12:03 PM.
