Hassan Whiteside, center for the Miami Heat, is already big in several ways. He stands at 7 feet tall and weighs over 260 pounds. He is also featured in many of DJ Khaled's Snapchat videos, so he is already a big man and a big celebrity. Lately, Whiteside has shown his potential to become even bigger, this time on the hardwood.
Whiteside is one the youngest players on the aging Miami Heat. Before the 2015-2016 season, Whiteside had played three injury-plagued seasons, appearing in just a total of 67 games on the NBA level while also spending some time in the D-League. This season, Whiteside was able to stay healthy, and his stats bumped up accordingly. In 73 regular season games, he averaged 14.2 points, 11.8 rebounds and 3.7 blocks while only starting 43 games.
The Heat is led by two former stars, Dwayne Wade (age 31) and Luol Deng (age 34), who are about to become white dwarfs. Each of the two is capable of shouldering the load on occasion, but neither player can be relied upon to contribute night in and night out in the future. That’s where the younger core of the Heat roster will come into play. Point guard Goran Dragic and 2015 lottery pick Justise Winslow will presumably take over the Miami backcourt as the changing of the guard (literally) occurs, but those two will need a proper big man to feed the ball to.
Whiteside has been groomed for that role over the past few seasons and seems ready to come into his own. Whiteside has surged up one of the biggest question marks of his game by improving his free throw shooting percentage from 41.7 percent in 2011-2012 to 65 percent in 2015-2016. With teams not as likely to use the Hack-A-Whiteside approach with his improved shooting, he can spend more time on the court in crunch time situations. Having proven himself already as one of the game’s premier rim protectors — he finished third place in the Defensive Player of the Year voting this season — there is not much standing in the way of Whiteside.
Whiteside has shown flashes of his potential along the way, but has yet to put it all together over an extended period of time. In Sunday’s playoff game against the Charlotte Hornets, Whiteside earned a starting nod and answered head coach Erik Spoelstra’s challenge with 21 points on 9-11 shooting, 11 rebounds and three blocks. He is also one of seven players in the last 50 years to have at least 14 points, 13 rebounds and 12 blocks in one game. Other players on that list include Shaquille O’Neal and Dikembe Mutombo, pretty good company for a player in just his fourth year in the league and only 26-years-old.
Look for Whiteside to make an even bigger splash next season and for him to be a big contributor if the Heat, who is the third seed in the Eastern Conference, makes a deep run in the playoffs over the next few weeks.