Hassan Whiteside
Age: 27
Height: 7 feet
Career stats: 24.1 mpg; 11.7 ppg, 9.9 rpg, 0.3 apg, 0.5 spg, 2.9 bpg; 60.9/0/59.8 ft shooting splits
2015-16 stats: 73 games, 29.1 mpg; 14.2 ppg, 11.8 rpg, 0.4 apg, 0.6 spg, 3.7 bpg; 60.6/0/65.0 shooting splits
Strengths:
• Rebounding: In two seasons with the Heat, Whiteside has averaged 10 and 11.8 rebounds. He is a beast on the boards, gobbling up 23 percent of his team’s available rebounds, and is improving every year.
• Defense: Whiteside, otherwise known as “Count Blockula”, averaged an obscene 3.7 blocks in the 2015-16 season … off the bench! He is one the premier rim protectors in the game.
• Athleticism: At 7 feet tall and 265 lbs with a 31-inch vertical leap, Whiteside is athletic as centers come. His tools are off the charts and he’s improving at putting them into play on offense and defense.
Weaknesses:
• Passing: Whiteside had just six assists in his first 48 games with Miami. Last year, that number improved to 30. But he still only averaged a paltry 0.4 assists per game.
• Maturity: Whiteside has been known to deal with issues both off and on the court. He had multiple discipline issues in his first year with Miami, and can sometimes struggle to stay on the floor and avoid distracting noise on and off it.
Why the Warriors make sense:
Andrew Bogut is injury prone, getting older, and offers little scoring. Whiteside has managed to avoid injuries, is in his prime, and averaged an intimidating 14.2 points in the 2015-16 campaign. Whiteside would certainly give the Warriors an asset they need: a young post player who can anchor a defense and be a legitimate scoring threat at the same time. Whiteside hasn’t dealt with injury issues and the Warriors desperately need resiliency and toughness from their frontcourt players. Going after Whiteside may mean that the Warriors have identified him as their potential center of the future. Even more enticing is the fact that Whiteside has shown limited flashes of a midrange jumper. For a team that heavily values shooting and defense, Whiteside is certainly worth a long look.
Why the Warriors don’t make sense:
One of the offensive abilities that the Warriors covet in their forwards and centers is passing and dribbling; Steve Kerr’s motion, spaced out offense requires big men to be able to step out to the elbow and perimeter to make handoffs and find cutters slashing to the basket. Bogut is exceptional at this. Whiteside lacks natural passing ability, and as his numbers show, is unused to functioning as a cog in a passing motion offense. His presence would require Kerr to tweak the characteristics of the NBA’s record breaking offense, and would also signal a migration away from the Warriors’ greatest strength: dominant small ball. Finally, who can say Whiteside and Draymond would be able to coexist? A certain Twitter exchange less than a year ago may undermine a potential partnership.