According to ESPN.com's Chad Ford, Dion Waiters has left the Chicago draft combine and cancelled his scheduled workouts, leading to speculation that the Syracuse guard has received assurances from a team that he'll be selected in the lottery. Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports (Twitter link) hears from a source that the Raptors at No. 8 were the team to give Waiters a guarantee, but Steve Kyler of HoopsWorld reports that GM Bryan Colangelo emphatically denied making such a promise.
"Why me? Why am I the guy making promises?" asked Colangelo, adding: "We did not guarantee anything to anybody" (Twitter links).
"His agent has told me there's a promise to another team," the Raptors GM told Doug Smith of the Toronto Star (Twitter link). "Regardless, if he's on the board he's in our mix."
According to Kyler's sources, the Suns are more likely to be the team that made Waiters a draft-day promise (Twitter link). Phoenix currently holds the 13th overall pick, and will be in need of backcourt help this summer, especially if Steve Nash signs elsewhere.
Alex Lee of Hoops Rumors examined Waiters in a Prospect Profile piece last Friday.
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Come to PHX Dion! Pairing him with Nash would be excellent.