Oklahoma City Thunder SG Dion Waiters was not extended by the Thunder last week, bringing concerns as to whether or not the guard will return to the team next year.
As you may remember, Dion Waiters had issues with his last team, the Cleveland Cavaliers. Waiters was confident in the belief that he deserved to be the star of the then rising Cavs team, but felt slighted when management decided to push for Kyrie Irving and Tristan Thompson instead. Shortly thereafter, the team traded Waiters to the Oklahoma City Thunder, where he flourished due to the injury of their top two stars Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant.
In the 2015-2016 season however, the Oklahoma City Thunder are at full force. They have both Westbrook and Durant for at least a couple 2 years on huge deals. The Thunder also signed Enes Kanter to a $70 million contract to be their go-to post scorer off the bench. Signing Dion Waiters may prove to be an issue seeing as they are already placing large somes of money into their bench through Kanter.
To their credit, the Oklahoma City Thunder did reportedly offer Waiters a team-friendly contract, but the guard declined hoping that the ballooning salary cap will increase the amount of money he may potentially earn.
The Thunder is well known for their frugality, most famously due to them trading away all-star SG James Harden to the Rockets for Kevin Martin and Jeremy Lamb, amongst others.
On possible contract disputes, Waiters commented that "I haven't thought about that. That's not my job to think about that. My job is to focus on basketball."