Miami Heat: Hassan Whiteside’s season recap and grade
By Duncan Smith
Hassan Whiteside had a tumultuous campaign for the Miami Heat in 2018-19, moving from the starting lineup to the bench in the middle of the season. We’ll grade and recap his season.
This was probably not the way Hassan Whiteside expected his season to go. After missing three games at the end of February with a hip strain, Whiteside was replaced in the Miami Heat starting lineup by Bam Adebayo on a permanent basis.
All things considered, Whiteside had a solid statistical season. He averaged 12.3 points and 11.3 rebounds per game and shot 57.1 percent from the floor. Whiteside actually had his highest rebounds per-36 minutes in his career, recording 17.6 boards per 36.
He even led the NBA in both defensive rebounding percentage and total rebounding percentage at a respective 35.6 percent and 25.9 percent.
Whiteside was stellar as the roll man in the pick-and-roll, scoring 1.291 points per possession (PPP), a rate that placed him in the 85th percentile. He was solid defensively against the pick-and-roll as well, allowing ball handlers to score against his defense at a rate of just .826 PPP and roll men to score just .825 PPP.
In spite of all of this, the Miami Heat functioned better both offensively and defensively once he was moved to the bench in early March. Adebayo clicked with Kelly Olynyk on the front line, and Whiteside was just too much for opposing reserve big men.
The Heat were 12-5 over the first 17 games Adebayo started, pushing themselves back into the playoff conversation, before they cracked under the strain of terrible injury luck down the stretch and went 1-5 in their last six games.
Whiteside was jerked around in the rotation even after being moved to the bench. On March 18th, a win over the Oklahoma City Thunder, he played just over five minutes. Three games later, another win against the Washington Wizards, he played just under five minutes.
As far as the media and general public knows, Miami Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra never explained this quasi-benching to him, so we’re left wondering what its purpose was. Whiteside is currently deciding what to do with a $27.1 million player option for the 2019-20 season, and while he would probably like clarity regarding those puzzling instances before eagerly committing to another season in Miami, that’s a lot of money to turn down any way you cut it.
Whiteside and Goran Dragic both have player options this summer, with Dragic’s being worth $19.2 million. If only one player opts out, the Heat won’t have usable cap space, but if they both opt out and they either trade or stretch Ryan Anderson, they can open up just about enough space for a max slot.
Given that there’s no added financial utility if only one opts out, the hope is that either both opt in or both opt out.
Hassan Whiteside is probably too good to be a backup center, but he’s not reliable or trustworthy enough to be a heavy-minutes starter for a team that hopes to contend. Mind you, the Miami Heat are nowhere near contending for anything, but there’s a ceiling on how high they can aim with him on the roster with that exorbitant salary on the books this season.
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