Former Miami Heat reclamation project, Hassan Whiteside, has yet to sign a free-agent deal. With his stats and numbers, why hasn’t he signed yet?
The Miami Heat moved on from Hassan Whiteside prior to last season. Regardless of all the counting stats he could put up on the board when at this best, they had seen him too many times at his not so best to continue that relationship.
Fast forward to this year’s Free Agency period and still… Hassan has yet to find a team. That’s after the likes of guys like Mason Plumlee, Tristan Thompson, Nerlens Noel, Willie Cauley-Stein, and a host of other centers have already inked deals.
Heck, you mean to tell me that even Toronto, who’s signed two big men and wanted Marc Gasol back, Detroit, who’s signed every big man that’s breathing right now, and/or the Knicks, who are, well, just the Knicks, haven’t even budged? What does it all say?
Nevermind that right now. Let’s look at Whiteside’s numbers real quick.
So, there isn’t a roster spot for a guy that averaged 15.5 points, 13.5 rebounds, 1.2 assists, and 2.9 blocks across 30 minutes per game for 67 contests last year in Portland? That’s what you’re telling me?
The Miami Heat moved on from Hassan Whiteside last season. It probably had something to do with the same reason why no one has signed him yet.
Yes, that’s what we are being told. And get this, it has absolutely nothing to do with those statistics.
While we can’t say for certain, to any explanation, it has to be something else with or about Hassan that’s kept him from drawing interest. Tons of people said that Miami must have been tripping to let him go or to speak of them the way they did at times.
They didn’t trash him or anything like that, however, you could tell that there were some things going on with him. He didn’t follow the norms of the culture, meaning, he wasn’t a team guy as much as he was a him guy.
That’s what you’re seeing now play out on the open market. There is something that teams know.
Between his time in Miami, his time in Portland, and what kept him from reaching the status he reached with the Miami Heat out of college, that is what’s keeping him off of a roster at the moment. He’ll get signed, by someone at some point, that talent and potential are too great to pass up at a certain point in all the proceedings based on a value and what’s still out there standpoint.
The fact that it hasn’t happened yet though is telling. Perhaps it humbly says something to the man himself as well.
It might help him.