Dion Waiters has been with the Lakers for both a long time, and not very long at all. The team signed him just barely before the coronavirus pandemic halted the 2019-20 season, and he hadn’t even appeared in a game for them yet. While he had been at practices, he’d only had a few before the league shut down.
So even though Waiters has technically been a Laker for the months, this first week of practices has been his first real look at the entire roster. When he was asked on his Friday morning Zoom call with the media if anyone has been better than he expected, he had to think about it for a second, but then quickly wanted to credit the Lakers’ two youngest players.