It's safe to say Hassan Whiteside is really excited to play with Portland Trail Blazers guards Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum this season.
When the Miami Heat traded Whiteside to the Blazers in the summer, the center posted a video of him saying, “We got shooters!”
At Blazers media day on Monday, the big man said playing with Lillard and McCollum is “like a kid's first Christmas.”
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Hassan Whiteside will start for the Blazers. Jusuf Nurkic is still recovering from the gruesome leg injury he suffered near the end of the 2018-19 season against the Brooklyn Nets at home.
Last season for the Heat, Whiteside averaged 12.3 points and 11.3 rebounds while shooting 57.1 percent from the field. He recorded 36 double-doubles.
The Blazers are hoping a change of scenery will be beneficial to Whiteside, who will make a whopping $27 million this season.
Whiteside won’t be getting double-teamed in Portland since Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum are elite 3-point shooters. If the big man can score and rebound for the Blazers at a high-level, this could be a good move for Portland even though Whiteside is very mercurial.
The Blazers got swept by the Golden State Warriors in the 2019 Western Conference Finals. Along with trading for Whiteside, the franchise signed Lillard and McCollum to extensions this offseason, traded Evan Turner to the Atlanta Hawks for Kent Bazemore, signed Pau Gasol, Mario Hezonja and Anthony Tolliver in free agency, and re-signed Rodney Hood.
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