Dion Waiters pens letter in Players Tribune

Heat fans got to see Dion Waiters in the playoffs after all.

The mercurial shooting guard penned an essay in the Players’ Tribune — the publication Kevin Durant used to announce his decision to sign with the Golden State Warriors — that was classic Waiters.

Along with Wright Thompson’s in-depth profile on Pat Riley, Heat fans should read Waiters’ essay. Waiters’ responds to the claim that he thinks he’s the best player in the NBA with a simple, “Hell yeah I do. I have to.” He talks about Riley exuding the sophisticated vibe of Robert De Niro in Casino, “real O.G., looking like a million bucks.”

The piece contains several personal anecdotes of Waiters’ life — he recounts the death of a close friend and says he’s had “too many” family members and friends murdered. But he says that receiving a call from Riley was “damn near the best thing that’s happened in my NBA career.”

Riley told him that he’d help get Waiters in world-class shape, and the 25-year-old was nearly throwing up in trash cans after training camp. But Waiters narrates a conversation he had with Durant saying Miami was about to go on a run — something Durant recalled in a podcast episode with The Ringers’ Bill Simmons — and we all know the story from there. The piece ends with Waiters expressing hope that he has “found a home” in Miami, but adding, “[h]owever it shakes out, this has been a hell of a ride this season...”

Truer words have never been spoken.