Waiters: NBA is lucky Heat aren't in playoffs

The Miami Heat's incredible second-half turnaround this season still wasn't enough to get them into the NBA Playoffs - narrowly missing out due to an eighth-place tiebreaker with Chicago - and Dion Waiters says that was good news for the rest of the league.

In a post for the The Players' Tribune titled "The NBA Is Lucky I'm Home Doing Damn Articles," Waiters recounts a story of a dinner he had with former Oklahoma City Thunder teammate Kevin Durant this season:

"I told him, 'Bro, we're about to go on a run.'

(Durant) was looking at me like like, Yeah, alright.

I said, 'Naw, I'm serious. We're gonna rip off seven straight.'

He said, 'Yeah, but we're coming to Miami in two weeks.'

I said, 'Yeah, that's a W. Bet.'

He was laughing his ass off.

We got back home and won three straight, and then Kev and those boys came to our building.

In the biggest win of the Heat's season, Waiters promptly sunk Durant's Warriors on a buzzer-beating trey.

"What's the analytics on that?" Waiters asks, fully aware of his reputation among NBA statheads as an inefficient shooter. "That's a W. Then I hit 'em with the pose."

Waiters is expected to exercise his opt-out this summer in order to get a raise on the $2.9 million he made this season. He credits Heat president Pat Riley for taking a chance on him, but hopes to be back in Miami.

And he's adamant the Heat - who finished the season by going 31-10 after starting 10-31 - could have made noise in the playoffs, even suggesting a Finals matchup with the Warriors was possible.

"I know Kev is reading this right now, like, 'Thank God this dude is at home doing articles instead of lurking in the playoffs,'" Waiters wrote. "You didn't wanna see us, Kev!"