Whiteside: "It Feels Like I'm Living a Dream"
For Miami Heat center Hassan Whiteside, his ascension to NBA relevance after ping-ponging between the D-League, Lebanon and China after getting drafted by the Kings four years ago has seemingly come out of nowhere. Despite three double-doubles in his last six games, with the Heat winning four of them, life still doesn't feel real for the shot-blocking machine leading into tonight's matchup with the Thunder.
"It feels like I'm living a dream," Whiteside said. "A couple months ago I couldn't even get anybody to look at me and now I've got 20 media people right here. It's crazy.
"It's just a dream I never want to wake up from. Every day I come into the arena I feel blessed. Even when I started my first game it was kind of like wow."
Whiteside reeked of arrogance upon entering the league four years ago, but today he breathes spurts of humility. The self-confidence is still flowing, and although he might occasionally unleash some fighting words against those who have doubted him, his feet appear to be firmly planted beneath his towering frame this time around, fully understanding his value and role on a 18-22 team trying to dig itself out of a rare sub-500 hole. Block shots. Rebound. Play hard. Crush the ball through the rim.
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Asked which centers he looked up to or patterned his game after while growing up, a string of current and future hall-of-famers rolled off his tongue.
"I looked up to Hakeem and David Robinson, of course Alonzo," Whiteside said. "Even [Kevin Garnett] I looked up to a lot."
Whiteside's numbers in his 16-game sample size with the Heat are jarring. He's second in PER among centers behind only DeMarcus Cousins but his ability to put a lid on the rim is what Miami's been savoring the most, forcing opponents into 43 percent-shooting at the iron, per NBA.com -- sixth in the league for players with at least four opponent attempts per game.
What that metric doesn't show is when a player passes up an attempt at the cylinder due to Whiteside's presence, a common occurrence over the last month. From Chris Paul to Steph Curry, players are quickly learning it's futile to challenge the seven-foot Marshall product.
The fun part will be seeing if the the lid holds as the sample size swells. Whiteside will have his hands full tonight, when Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook bring their high-scoring barrage to Miami. Will the dream go on?
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