All-Time Cleveland Cavaliers draft bust starting five

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Dion Waiters, Cleveland Cavaliers. Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images /

All-Time Cleveland Cavaliers draft bust starting PG: Dion Waiters

Thankfully for the Cavaliers and unfortunately for the symmetry of our team, the Cavs haven’t absolutely bombed a pick at point guard. That leaves an open spot for one of the many mistakes at shooting guard, and Dion Waiters gets the call to slide over and fill the spot.

Waiters was a two-year player at Syracuse before entering the draft, and in his best season for the Orange he played just 24.1 minutes per game and averaged 12.6 points as a bench player. Somehow that didn’t bother the Cavs, who took him 4th overall in the 2012 NBA Draft.

One thing the young guard did accomplish on a rebuilding Cavs team was score, as he put up 14.7 points per game as a rookie starting alongside Kyrie Irving. Unfortunately, that’s about all Waiters coudl do, and it’s not like he did so efficiently, either. Across three seasons in Cleveland he shot just 42 percent from the field and 32.8 percent from 3-point range.

The Cavs jettisoned Waiters in 2015 to bring in role players who fit better with LeBron James. He bounced around the league a bit, having a few impressive moments for the Miami Heat before fading to the edge of the NBA world. He won a ring as the last guy on the Los Angeles Lakers’ bench in 2020.

Who else could the Cavs have taken? The 2012 NBA Draft offered plenty of options after Waiters, the most prominent of which was Damian Lillard two picks later. Could you imagine a team with Kyrie, Lillard, LeBron James and Kevin Love?