The Miami Heat put an end to the Hassan Whiteside era earlier this month, trading the big man to the Portland Trail Blazers after a five-year run in South Beach.
But in spite of the fact that Whiteside's tenure with the Heat did not exactly end well, he still has fond memories of his time in Miami and thinks there were more positives than negatives:
“Anybody that was around me in the locker room, my teammates and all that, it was a great environment for us,” said Whiteside, according to Ira Winderman of The South Florida Sun Sentinel. “I was there for six years. We definitely had our ups and downs through six years, but I think it was definitely more good than bad.”
Whiteside is coming off of a 2018-19 campaign in which he played 72 games and averaged 12.3 points, 11.3 rebounds and 1.9 blocks over 23.3 minutes per game while shooting 57.1 percent from the floor and 44.9 percent from the free-throw line.
The 30-year-old has had an interesting NBA path, as he was originally selected by the Sacramento Kings in the second round of the 2010 NBA Draft. However, he played just 19 games with the Kings over his first two seasons and did not play in the NBA at all in 2012-13 and 2013-14 before arriving with the Heat in November 2014.
Whiteside was so impressive over his first couple of seasons that Miami went on to sign him to a massive multi-year deal during the summer of 2016, but it didn't take long for Whiteside to wear out his welcome, as his style of play has been phased out of the league.
Still, the seven-footer says it's all love in South Florida:
“I can still call anybody today — Pat [Riley], Coach, any of the team — and we’ll still laugh it up,” said Whiteside. “I don’t really think it was a problem, because if it was that big of a problem, I wouldn’t have been there that long.”
Whiteside owns career averages of 13.4 points and 11.4 boards a night.
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