Miami Heat big man Hassan Whiteside was turned back by several NBA teams coming out of Marshall University. With a lot of persistence, though, the North Carolina native managed to prove his worth. Those early days weren't without frustration, however. In fact, in a recent interview with Tom Haberstroh of Bleacher Report, Whiteside revealed that he was “really angry” when he first entered the NBA.
“When I came into the NBA, I was really angry,” Whiteside said in his interview with Bleacher Report. “I feel like I never got a fair shot. I was just really mad at the NBA. I was mad at people. I was getting overlooked every summer league, all the workouts. The team would say I had a great workout. There would be workouts where I didn’t miss a shot, a perfect workout. And then they’d get some guy that wasn’t even good.
“It was just a really frustrating part of my life and I came in so mad at all the GMs, so mad at everybody playing for them GMs,” Whiteside adds.
Whiteside has seen both ends of the spectrum in the NBA. After signing a $98 million deal in 2016, he became the first player in league history to go from a veteran’s minimum contract one season to a maximum contract the next.
Fair or not, there was a lot of hype around Whiteside's arrival in Miami — a fact Dwyane Wade recently touched on.
“When Hassan first came in, we treated him like Shaq [Shaquille O'Neal] or Zo [Alonzo Mourning] how you try to motivate him,” Wade tells Bleacher Report. “Over time, you realize he’s different. You have to approach him differently.”
Whiteside will likely play a big role for the Heat this season. The 29-year-old made 54 appearances with Miami last year, averaging 14.0 points on 54.0 percent shooting from the field, 11.4 rebounds, and 1.0 assist in 25.3 minutes per outing.
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