Hassan Whiteside had quite the tough end of the season with the Miami Heat. He was reportedly fed up with the manner in which he was deployed throughout the year under coach Erik Spoelstra, culminating in an extremely disappointing playoff series.
President Pat Riley noted in his exit interview that he would have done the same as Spoelstra, as Whiteside simply did not seem fit enough to play extended minutes after coming back from multiple injury instances throughout the 2017-18 campaign.
The 7-footer is now revitalized and raring to get started again, having had a few months to get his body and his habits right after a somewhat disappointing season, regressing from a career-high 17 points, 14.1 rebounds, and 2.1 blocks per game in 2016-17.
“I feel great,” said Whiteside, according to Manny Navarro of The Miami Herald. “I feel a lot better than I did during the season. I'm completely healed now. I feel like my regular self again.”
Whiteside got off to a bombastic start to the season, dropping 26 points and 22 rebounds in his season-opener against the Orlando Magic, but the big man suffered an injury at the end of the game which caused his absence for the next few games.
The big man never fully recovered from his injury woes, and some even questioned his work ethic and discipline when it came to battling injuries — something that proved to be a regular impasse coming back into Spoelstra's rotation.
The man at the helm opted to play Kelly Olynyk and rookie Bam Adebayo at Whiteside's center position through most of the first round against the Philadelphia 76ers, further obscuring the high-skying Marshall product on the bench.
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