When the little-known defensive specialist Hassan Whiteside unexpectedly became a borderline star with the Miami Heat in the second half of last season, the big question was whether he was a one-season wonder or a player at the beginning of a special career.
Eleven games into his second season with the Heat, Whiteside, 26, who had been out of the NBA for two seasons, seems to have cleared up any ambiguity. Whiteside, a 7-footer, is leading the NBA in blocks per game, is second in field-goal percentage and is fourth in rebounds a game. His name stands out among the league leaders for his unusual pedigree, but the thought that he may be a fluke is fading fast. Last Tuesday, he recorded a triple-double with 22 points, 14 rebounds and 10 blocks. Blocked-shot totals are unreliable before 1985-86, but since then, Whiteside is one of just seven players to have multiple career triple-doubles of points, rebounds and blocks.
A deeper dive into the numbers reveals that Whiteside, unlike, say, the Oklahoma City big man Enes Kanter — who puts up big box score numbers but proves to be a liability in many ways — may be even more valuable than traditional statistics suggest.
Whiteside is set to become a free agent this offseason, and the combination of an expected increase in cap space and the fact that Kanter received a $70 million contract from the Thunder suggests that Whiteside is about to become extremely wealthy.
Pat Riley, the Heat’s president, and coach Erik Spoelstra have often received unexpected production from unheralded players. Chris Andersen, for example, became a vital cog in the team’s 2012-13 championship run after he was brought in on a 10-day contract. But given Whiteside’s atypical path to NBA stardom, and his age and his size, he may qualify as the Heat’s best diamond in the rough.
That Whiteside even ended up as a rotation player in the NBA is surprising. After he had a solid one-season college career at Marshall, the Sacramento Kings took him with the 33rd pick of the 2010 draft. He played one game for the Kings as a rookie, spending some time with the Reno Bighorns of the development league, while also dealing with a knee injury. In his second season, he played 18 games with the Kings while also spending time with Reno. He was released after the 2011-12 season.
Over the next two seasons, he again played in the development league, had two stints in Lebanon and won a finals Most Valuable Player Award with the Sichuan Blue Whales of the National Basketball League in China.
The Heat signed Whiteside in November 2014, and he finally got back into an NBA game on Dec. 1. On Dec. 19, he saw his first significant action, playing 15 minutes in a loss. On Jan. 3, he scored in double digits for the first time. And on Jan. 4, he recorded his first double-double.
From Jan. 1 through the end of the season, Whiteside averaged 13.7 points, 11.5 rebounds and 2.9 blocks a game, much of that coming after Chris Bosh was lost for the season because of blood clots in his lungs. Whiteside’s various peripheral skills led to his receiving a player efficiency rating of 26.2, which would have placed him between James Harden and Chris Paul had he played enough to qualify among the league leaders.
Now playing alongside Bosh, Whiteside has been even better, with averages of 15 points, 11.3 rebounds and 4.5 blocks a game heading into the weekend, while still playing just 28.8 minutes a game. By Basketball-Reference’s calculations, he allows the fewest points per 100 possessions of any player in the NBA when he is on defense, while also blocking an NBA-high 12.12 percent of his opponents’ shots, which would shatter the record of 10.81 percent set by Manute Bol in 1988-89. His PER is up to 27.74, which ties him with LeBron James for fifth in the NBA. He is second in the NBA in defensive win shares.
No longer a diamond in the rough, Whiteside has instead become a fully loaded diamond, and is probably the biggest bargain in the NBA. Among the top 10 in the NBA in PER, the second-lowest salary is Stephen Curry’s $11,370,786, more than 11 times Whiteside’s $981,348. The average salary of the nine players in the top 10 other than Whiteside is $16.6 million.
When Riley and Spoelstra look to bring Whiteside back for next season, they are going to need quite a bit of money from the team owner, Mickey Arison, to make it happen. But if his 59 games with the Heat so far are any indication, he will be well worth it.
