Portland Trail Blazers: Hassan Whiteside’s numbers aren’t “empty stats”

Why Whiteside’s flaws can be withstood for the Blazers

Here’s one of the aspects that gets forgotten about Hassan Whiteside’s 2019-20 campaign: the high expectations for this season weren’t put on by Whiteside, but rather, by the fans.

On the first day of July this past offseason, the Heat decided to fully buy into their new regime, which meant trading anyway anything that put a rock in between the development of Bam Adebayo. All told, the deal struck that day turned out to basically be Meyers Leonard for Hassan Whiteside. And even the most loyal of Portland Trail Blazers fans have to admit that Whiteside has both: a) turned in more production than Leonard at any point, b) done a commendable job filling in the 280-pound gap that is Jusuf Nurkić.

Still, many have decided to cling to the thought that Whiteside is an “empty stats” big, a belief that reached infancy stages in Miami.

It’s funny: now-Bleacher Report writer Yaron Weitzman wrote a piece on Dec. 21, 2015, in detailing how the Heat’s play was better without Whiteside. Four years later, some of the same criticisms come about. Whiteside was the still league’s leading shot-blocker who struggled to understand nuances of NBA offenses.

It’s true. Sometimes Whiteside does look like “a child crossing the street for the first time.” His passing vision on double teams can sometimes be Stinkmeaner-like blind. He still sags too far on smooth-shooting bigs. But that doesn’t make him an empty calorie stat stuffer. Some believe the reason for that is that players like Whiteside are chasing statistics.

There’s a long-standing belief that players performing in a contract year — or final year of a contract — raise their games to once-unforeseen heights, in order to boost their chances of a lucrative payday. The trickle-down effect even reaches front offices and coaches. In Yahoo Sports columnist Ben Rohrback’s article from 2017-18, one agent said that teams know about it, and “either they’re OK with it and play him normally, or cut his time in subtle ways to save money, call less plays for him.”

"“Players are definitely conscious of it, prepare better, are more sensitive,” a longtime NBA agent told Yahoo Sports. “I think it’s fair to say guys put more pressure on a situation – and most of all themselves – in a contract year, and then once they are paid, they coast more. Human nature.”"

That’s just the way of the world. In 2003, 50 Cent’s Get Rich or Die Tryin became the highest-selling first album in history. After the thirst to “get rich” was quenched, he went from being legendary to simply great. For some, success breeds relaxation. In Whiteside’s case, years :starring” in the D-League, Lebanon, and even the local YMCA will do that to you.

Say Whiteside was working to get five offensive rebounds per game instead of four. Would that really hurt his team? Would a player not feel comforted to know that his starting center did something that only Shaquille O’Neal, Bill Walton, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar did?

We’re talking about a player who could only afford $20 for a workout with his longtime trainer, at the time of his infancy stages toward a meaningful NBA career.

For a player who ranked No. 3 in a statistic that his front office executive created, and was still given up on, it’s safe to say Whiteside’s done more than his part on this uphill climb. We could call it empty stats if Whiteside was doing this on say, a 14-win Warriors team, or if his numbers hadn’t proven they could translate onto 40-to-50 win teams. But they have. Portland is 3½ games out of the postseason with the fourth-most injury-riddled roster in the NBA.

The numbers are great. And they’re only empty calories if you haven’t considered the whole menu of what this season has offered. This is the great debate. And if pineapple on pizza arguments have come to an understanding, then so can we on Hassan Whiteside.