The speculation has run rampant in the weeks leading up to the biggest day in Dion Waiters’ life, but he hasn’t paid much attention. There isn’t any point. Fact will replace rumor Thursday night, when his professional basketball career is set, his future defined.

While the conjecture swirled around him, Waiters sat back and avoided the hype.

“He’s just stayed focused. Right now, he’s not waiting, listening to everything until that day,” Waiters’ mother Monique Brown said. “He’ll see it or will look at it but he won’t comment on it because he’s going to wait until that day and then he’ll celebrate.”

The celebration will ensue on the stage of the Prudential Center during the 2012 NBA Draft, where Waiters is projected to be an early- to mid-first round pick. After two seasons with Syracuse, where he became a scoring weapon as a sophomore and arguably the best sixth man in college basketball, he’ll finally accomplish what Brown said has always been his dream.

Potential landing spots for Waiters include Golden State (7 pick), Toronto (8), and Portland (6 and 11), and Phoenix (13 pick). On June 8, Waiters cancelled all of his future workouts with teams, and also didn’t participate in the NBA Draft Combine in Chicago. Almost immediately, speculation spread that he received a guarantee from a team, making any future workouts meaningless.

From the way he controlled the floor in college, there’s sufficient evidence to believe Waiters is ready to elevate his game to the NBA level.

Waiters is a versatile scorer, but he’s most dangerous driving the lane. His strength lets him attack the rim while absorbing contact. Off the pick-and-roll or in transition, Waiters slices through defenses with ferocity.

His jump shot remains a work in progress, but off the dribble or in catch-and-shoot situations, he’s shown he can knock down the clutch shots.

“He’s clearly more scorer than shooter. Sometimes you call it a 2, a shooting guard, I call this guy a scoring guard,” said Jim Clibanoff, draft analyst and owner of the scouting service ClibHoops. “He’s just got a bravado, a confidence about him that says ‘Give me the ball, and I’m going to go get you buckets.’”

On a deep Orange team, Waiters scored an average of 12.6 points per game, second to forward Kris Joseph’s 13.4. If Waiters was on almost any other Division-I team, he would’ve averaged in the high teens, Clibanoff said.

Waiters thrived in his role coming off the bench for SU, providing a jolt to the offense. When he got into a rhythm, Waiters could take over a game and let every other SU scorer simply watch him go to work.

In the Orange’s third-round win over Kansas State in the 2012 NCAA Tournament, Waiters scored 18 points in 24 minutes. Against Cincinnati in the Big East tournament, he scored 28 points in 32 minutes on the floor. That came one day after notching 18 points in 24 minutes in SU’s win over Connecticut.

His confidence gives him everything he needs to provide a scoring punch, but it can also be a liability. Still, in the year that he went from being a freshman learning to adjust to a reserve role to a sophomore who embraced his sixth man status, his decision-making improved.

His mindset, though, never changed.

“The score-first mentality is something that stood out,” Alex Raskin of Hoopsworld said. “This is a guy who’s very confident with his own shot.”

Wherever Waiters lands, he would likely be most effective coming off the bench in the same role he played at SU. Whether or not he could be an NBA point guard remains to be seen, but it would be a diversion from his college game to take on a primary role of creating plays instead of finishing them.

His maturity level, which grew substantially from a freshman season that involved a sometimes contentious relationship with SU head coach Jim Boeheim that nearly caused Waiters to leave SU, will determine how he’ll accept his new role. Raphael Chillious coached Waiters during his sophomore season at South Kent in Connecticut and said regardless of his body language, he always wants to improve.

He might look like he’s blowing off coaches’ critiques, but Waiters is actually filing the advice away in his mind, said Chillious, who’s now an assistant coach at Washington.

“He’s always listened to the coach,” Chillious said, “even though he may not show it.”

That’ll be tested as Waiters learns a new defensive system.

Chillious said Waiters shouldn’t have much of a struggle going from a 2-3 zone at Syracuse to a man-to-man defense in the NBA. Waiters’ defense has never been the strongest component of his game, but Chillious said his quickness and overall athleticism will allow him to adjust to a new style.

Within days, Waiters will begin adjusting to everything there is in the NBA.

When his name is finally called and he has his first professional employer, it’ll be the day Waiters has waited for all his life. From the streets of Philadelphia to the Carrier Dome floor, and now, to the NBA.

Soon enough, Waiters will be a pro.

“It’s going to be a joyful moment,” Brown said. “That’ll be the day that he dreamt of, and his dream will come true on June 28.”

Published on June 27, 2012 at 10:13 am

Contact Chris: cjiseman@syr.edu | @chris_iseman