Portland Trail Blazers should re-sign Hassan Whiteside
Hassan Whiteside had a great 2019-20 season for the Portland Trail Blazers. A pending free agent, the Blazers need him back in Rip City.
Portland Trail Blazers pending free agent Hassan Whiteside may be one of the most polarizing NBA players to analyze. You look at his counting stats and wish he was on your team. His career numbers of 13.7 points, 11.7 rebounds, 2.4 blocks per game while shooting 62.1 percent from the floor and 68.6 percent from the charity stripe are enticing.
Many NBA teams would love to have a center who can put up those numbers. Add in that within the last three years, Whiteside started to shoot the 3-ball, and this is a burgeoning elite star! It takes a deeper dive than just the surface numbers to get a better picture of his abilities and liabilities.
Because he has a reputation for blocked shots, Whiteside has a reputation of being a tough defender. In reality, the opponent’s offenses are better when he’s on the floor then when he’s off.
Wait; what? Yes, Whiteside’s personal defense is really good, but it comes at the cost of team defense. For example, he often leaves his man to chase blocks. That leads to easy buckets for the opponent as the help defender is out of position. His total games and minutes played in 2020 are the third-highest of his career.
What does that mean for the free agent to be?
I’ll be honest. I approached this article with the idea that resigning Whiteside is not be a good idea. The center is fresh off a four-year $98M deal he signed with Miami in 2016. That was the year of the NBA’s major influx of TV revenue. Lots of players got paid large sums of money. I’ve changed my opinion on resigning him.