Hassan Whiteside
Miami Heat: The good and the bad of Hassan Whiteside
Hassan Whiteside

Miami Heat: The good and the bad of Hassan Whiteside

Published Jun. 30, 2017 6:28 p.m. ET

Hassan Whiteside signed a huge contract extension this offseason to remain with the Miami Heat. We examine his play thus far. 

Early on July 1st of this past summer, the first day players and teams could agree to terms on new deals, Hassan Whiteside came to a relatively quick decision about where he would be playing.

There was strong speculation that Whiteside was leaning towards signing with the Dallas Mavericks. However, the big man chose to stick with the team who gave him a legitimate shot at an NBA comeback. That, of course, was the Miami Heat.

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Heat fans were excited, and rightfully so. Players of Whiteside’s caliber don’t often come out of nowhere to lead the NBA in blocks, as he did in the 2015-’16 season. And it would have been a gut punch for Miami to discover him, just to have him flourish on someone else’s team.

Unfortunately, we had no idea Dwayne Wade would be dropping a bomb on us just five days later. And to add insult to injury, the Heat failed to garner much interest from their biggest target, Kevin Durant. We all know where he ended up.

So now, five months later, the dust has finally settled. We are a quarter of the way through the new season. And it’s the first one in which Whiteside is considered “the guy” in Miami. Though the team hasn’t had much success, he’s performing at a high level. At least that’s what it looks like at first glance.

Although it’s still early, 22 games is a good enough sample size. Let’s take a closer look, and see if the Heat’s prized big man has truly lived up to his four year, $98 million contract extension.

Whiteside is posting career-high numbers in multiple categories

Upon first examination of Whiteside’s stats this season, you will see an improved player. His 17.6 points, 14.7 rebounds and seven made field goals per contest are all career-highs. He’s still not passing as well as he should, but at least he’s almost averaging an assist per game. Just look at this play from Miami’s match-up against the Boston Celtics:

Whiteside posts up, does a great job recognizing an incoming double team, and finds a cutting Rodney McGruder for an easy basket. That’s a play that he probably wouldn’t even make last season. His feel for the game is clearly improving, though it still has to get better.

The 27 year-old center also had a career-best scoring performance this season. On November 21st, he exploded for 32 points against the Philadelphia 76ers. He went 13-for-19 from the floor, and secured 13 rebounds, six of which came on the offensive end. You can watch his highlights right over here, if you’d like.

As is often the case with Whiteside though, even that performance was somewhat tarnished. For starters, the Heat lost. Yes, the Miami Heat (of “not five, not six, not seven” fame), lost to the seemingly always-tanking 76ers. Whiteside also had five fouls, and allowed rookie Joel Embiid to put up such a performance that he took to Instagram immediately afterwards to share what he felt about Whiteside’s defense.

You will always notice some good and some bad when examining Whiteside as a player. Here’s some of the bad.

Due to increased opportunity, Whiteside’s efficiency has taken a hit

Whiteside is not as efficient of a player as he was last season. His field goal percentage, though still at a healthy 55 percent, is the lowest it’s been since he joined Miami. He’s also averaging a career-high 3.3 fouls and two turnovers per game.

Particularly killer has been his regression from the free throw line. In the final two months of last season, Whiteside made a huge improvement from the stripe. From February 24th through the end of the year, he was a 77 percent free throw shooter. Many thought he had fixed his struggles from the line. Sadly, that hasn’t remotely carried over to this year. He’s now back to a paltry 54 percent.

That regression has led to a plummet in Whiteside’s true-shooting percentage. True shooting is a metric that takes into account free throw shooting, plus two-point and three-point percentages. He went from 62.9 percent last year (22nd best in the NBA), to 55.8 percent this year (149th in the NBA).

We can also take a look at Whiteside’s shooting percentages from different distances. So far this season, Whiteside’s percentages have worsened in three of the four areas in which he shoots the most.

From within five feet of the basket, Whiteside is currently shooting 65 percent, down from 71 percent last year. From between five and nine feet, he’s at 39 percent, down from 45 percent. And from 10 to 14 feet, Whiteside is sitting at 30 percent shooting, a huge drop from 51 percent last year.

The only zone in which Whiteside has improved his shooting is between 15 and 19 feet, an area from which he really shouldn’t be shooting to begin with. You can find all of those numbers on NBA Stats, if you want a closer look for yourself.

To be fair to Miami’s big man however, this is the first year Whiteside is one of the two main options on a team. I expect all those numbers to take a jump as he grows accustomed to being the focal point of an opposing team’s defense. Plus, 18 points and 15 rebounds per game is nothing to scoff at.

Miami’s paint defense is elite, and that’s thanks to Whiteside’s improved maturity

Although Miami’s overall defensive numbers have recently taken a hit due to half the roster being out with injury, the team’s interior defense remains elite.

The Heat boast the second best opponent shooting percentage from within five feet of the basket. Miami’s opposition is shooting 53.6 percent from that area. Only the Utah Jazz, who also have an elite big man defender in Rudy Gobert, are better.

Whiteside’s personal numbers defending the rim are even more exceptional. Take a look:

Gotta love the no-call.

Whiteside’s level of excellence defending the rim may be surpising to some, considering that the big man is averaging a full less block than last year. But that’s exactly why he has improved.

Last season, Whiteside would often chase opposing players in futile hopes of trying to block every shot. This allowed Whiteside’s man to often find himself unmarked, in easy position for a dump-off pass, or a put-back basket. Here’s a prime example, from a late-season game against the Toronto Raptors:

Yes, DeMar Derozan blew by Joe Johnson so someone had to help. But Goran Dragic did a nice job contesting, meaning Whiteside did not need to leave Jonas Valanciunas, who only had to wait for the simple pass, and finish. This season, things are different. Miami’s defense has greatly benefited from Whiteside realizing he no longer needs to stat-chase.

There is, though, another aspect of the big man’s year thus far that is troubling.

Whiteside has struggled against other elite centers

After Dwight Howard’s explosion last night, I decided to take a look at how Whiteside has fared in games against other top-notch centers. I looked at both, up-and-coming guys and established veterans at the position. And the results were not pretty.

First off, I used eight games so the sample-size wouldn’t be too small. I looked at both matchups against Marc Gasol, both matchups against Rudy Gobert, both against Howard, and single-game samples against Andre Drummond and Steven Adams. A couple of those guys have already won defensive player of the year awards, and others are considered the future of the position.

In those eight games, Whiteside has averaged 10.1 points on a meager 39 percent shooting, to go along with 13 rebounds, and just one block per outing. He’s played a total of 260 minutes in those contests, and the team has been outscored by 84 points with him on the floor. The Heat lost six of those eight games, and were outscored by 50 points in total.

Those numbers are concerning, any way you slice it. Often times, it felt as if the opposing center took playing against Whiteside as a challenge. And if he doesn’t start matching their level of intensity, the Heat will continue to lose those games handily.

Despite team struggles, Whiteside is emerging as a leader

There’s no way around it: the Miami Heat are not a good basketball team right now. You can look at countless reasons for that being the case.

Wade left. LeBron left before him. And even after losing Chris Bosh due to recurring blood clots, the Heat have seemingly still not satisfied the injury gods. Five players are currently in Miami receiving treatment while the team is in the middle of a road trip.

The Heat’s record presently sits at 7-15, they have the 12th-worst net rating in the NBA (minus-2.3), and play the Cleveland Cavaliers on Friday. Oh, and the day immediately following, they have be in Chicago for a game against Wade’s new team, the Bulls. So things are about to get uglier.

But that hasn’t stopped Whiteside from speaking out, and showing leadership skills that previously weren’t apparent. From a piece by the Associated Press:

“That’s what I’ve been doing all my life,” Whiteside said. “You are going to have down days. You are going to have down weeks. That doesn’t mean you give up or listen to outside people. They are not in here. They are not on the court. We are not listening to that. We are going to keep coming out and going hard. Keep working and keep learning. We are going to get it.”

Very encouraging words from Miami’s young center. Coach Spoesltra has also spoken of Whiteside’s improved leadership:

“It really means something to him right now,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “He’s feeling the responsibility of inspiring and helping a team win. It’s a big responsibility. And you have to put yourself out there as a competitor and show everybody how much it means to you. And when you do that you make yourself vulnerable, especially when you don’t get the result that you want. But Hassan is putting himself out there.”

So although things look bad now, and will likely look worse by Sunday, it’s good to see the Heat’s most important player hasn’t lost his focus. If Miami’s young guys can learn anything from this season, it will be how to be resilient.

I mean, just about everything has gone wrong for the Heat. But if the team’s inexperienced nucleus (including Whiteside) can keep their heads on straight, we could see a major improvement before the season even ends. Here’s hoping, at least.

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