Tremont Waters addresses his late father

Prior to his fourth game with the Celtics at NBA Summer League in Las Vegas, Tremont Waters learned of his father's passing. Ed Waters, 49, was found dead in a motel room in West Haven, Conn on July 11. It was later ruled a suicide.

The Celtics second-round draft pick elected to play in the July 11 game against Memphis' Summer League team despite being aware of the news. His father was clearly still on his mind:

Waters addressed the matter publicly for the first time on Saturday. He shared his thoughts about his father in an Instagram post:

All my life, you, Edward B. Waters Jr. developed to become a soldier; a fighter. No matter the circumstances at hand or what you were going through you figured it out. That's a trait that's hard to find because it has to come from within. Deep down inside you made a promise to yourself that you would be a much better father than yours was to you... you did exactly that. Whatever "it" was, you made it a priority to get it accomplished to the best of your abilities. There are many things that I didn't understand about how you were but I now understand that you had very little to absolutely NO help with anything growing up. You had to build from the ground up and did everything on your own. We've had our ups and most definitely had our downs but we continued to push through it all. I can sit here all day and talk about any and everything that you taught me and the things that are hurting me right now, BUT you raised a much better MAN than that. My job is to continue to build on your legacy and continue to be successful and happy. It's bigger than what's going on in the moment; you always told me to look at the bigger picture so that's what I'm going to do from here on out. You left a MUCH GREATER impression on myself and my ma that will not wash away dwindle away. There's nothing that can stop us now.... NOTHING -------- I love you so much DAD and PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE know that I won't let you down Big Lion --! ♥️---- I get it now... "Life's a game of Chess ♟ not checkers! --" -EBW II. EIE•NIG TGTIGTI-FTGG NOO! YOU DID IT!---- -Lil Lion --~ TEAMWATERS----

A post shared by WatersWay-TRW---- (@tremontwaters) on Jul 27, 2019 at 10:00am PDT