Dion Waiters folded his arms, stared into nothingness and gave this NBA season its best deal-with-it moment, a classic internet meme that will live on for sometime. Waiters had to wait until he was in his fifth season, with his third team and sixth coach, to have the chance to take, and make, the kind of pull-up 3-pointer that he used to knock off the Golden State Warriors two months ago. But what turned Waiters into the cult hero of confidence was what came after his shot went splash – that defiant pose, that self-admiring b-boy stance that seemed to be asking his doubters, “How ya like me now?”

“That’s just that Philly cheese swag,” Waiters told The Vertical. “Now, everybody see me, they do the pose.”

The pose has certainly been the defining image of Waiters’ breakout season, but it certainly wasn’t the last time he would save the Heat with his timely shot-making. Since then, he has banked a back-breaking 3-pointer against his former team, the defending champion Cleveland Cavaliers, and urged fans to get out of the building. He has hit three heat-check, fall-away 3-pointers late in the fourth quarter to finish off Charlotte and – borrowing a phrase from the previous occupant of his position – let fans in Miami know whose city it was.

[Fill out your NCAA tournament bracket here | Printable version]

Waiters, 25, has been a starter on a bad team and then a reserve on two championship contenders but always believed he could play a more integral role in helping a team win. After an unexpected detour last summer, Waiters found that chance in Miami, where he’s averaging career-highs of 16.1 points, 4.4 assists and 3.4 rebounds on a Heat team that is somehow knocking on the Eastern Conference playoff door despite starting the season 11-30.

“This season right here, I truly believe it shows players that when things aren’t going right, or if you’re on better teams and have a lesser role, or you’re knowing you can do some of the things these other guys are doing but never really had the chance, be patient,” Waiters told The Vertical. “Keep working and always have faith and the utmost confidence in yourself. I always had confidence in myself. Everybody knows that. That’s how I am. I never lacked confidence. I don’t care. You could make jokes of it. But I’m a man. I’m a father at the end of the day. I can’t allow my child to see his father lack confidence in any situation. That’s why as a man, you’ve got to believe you can do anything you put your mind to.”

No longer a catch-and-shoot player, hustling to get open and begging for the generosity of his teammates to get touches, Waiters is playing the way he always imagined he should’ve. Heat coach Erik Spoelstra has given him the freedom to make plays off the dribble, to make plays for others, to make mistakes, even earn the chance to make up for a bad shot here and there. “I know my role. And I know I can be myself,” Waiters told The Vertical. “I can play my game and I can impact the game [with] me not having to defer. And when I say, ‘defer,’ I mean I don’t have to be this guy that I’m not – a guy that has to be in the corner and wait for the ball. That’s not who I am as a player.

Wild 3-pointers are a part of Dion Waiters’ game. (AP) More

“Overall, I’m back to having fun. I think I’ve been missing that part of the game over the last two and a half years – playing the game and having fun doing it. I always used to watch other guys. I’d watch guys from my [draft] class and see how freely they were able to play. I’d be like, ‘Man, I just want that, one time.’ And I got that opportunity to come to Miami.”

Story continues