It is safe to say that Hassan Whiteside has been one of the biggest stories of the NBA season.
Before the 2014-15 season began, Whiteside was a little-known professional basketball player who had been selected by the Sacramento Kings in the second round of the 2010 NBA Draft. After seeing just two minutes of total NBA action during his rookie season, he played sparingly in his sophomore campaign, appearing in just 18 total games while averaging just 6.1 minutes per contest.
Over the next two seasons, the 7-foot center would wash out of the NBA and make a living playing pro basketball overseas. Hassan would play in China and Lebanon before making his return to the NBA when the Miami Heat signed Whiteside to a 10-day contract back in late November of this season.
The signing was met with zero fanfare. In fact, Whiteside was signed largely due to injuries that had been accumulating on the Heat’s roster. By late November, Chris Andersen, Udonis Haslem, Josh McRoberts and Chris Bosh had all missed games due to injury.
Despite being met with very little celebration, Whiteside has turned into the Heat’s best two-way player. He has shattered rebounding records, and has established himself as one of the league’s premier defenders. The 25-year-old has already grabbed at least 24 rebounds in three separate games and is averaging 2.4 blocks per game, which is good for third in the league.
The young center has taken the league by storm. Here are five reasons why Whiteside deserves this year’s Most Improved Player award.
1. Monster Numbers
First and foremost when you think of Whiteside, you think of numbers. You might not have watched many games of the young center, but you’re immediately wowed by the production that he’s posting.
His PER (player efficiency rating) rating for the season is currently 27.15. That is good for fifth in the NBA, only behind the likes of MVP candidates/former MVP players such as Anthony Davis, Russell Westbrook, Steph Curry and Kevin Durant.
His field goal percentage of .625 would rank second among all qualified players, only behind DeAndre Jordan. His true shooting percentage currently ranks 13th.
This isn’t even including the aforementioned 24-plus rebounding games or the triple-double game in the victory over the Chicago Bulls on January 25, in which he posted 14 points, 13 rebounds and an astounding 12 blocks. The 12 blocks are also a single-game franchise record.
When you look at monster numbers across the board, there isn’t a single player in the NBA that is doing it better than Whiteside this season.
Next: Rapid Emergence
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2. Rapid Emergence
The fact of the matter is, Whiteside came out of nowhere.
This is a guy who wasn’t even a blip on the NBA’s radar before the last couple of months. He emerged from obscurity and has become one of the league’s most dominant forces on both sides of the court.
Of recent sensations, Jeremy Lin is the most comparable. During the 2011-12 season, Lin took the NBA by storm when he too rose from little-known bench player into becoming arguably his team’s most valuable player. The point guard would end up finishing the season sixth in the voting for the Most Improved Player award.
While Lin posted nice averages of 14.6 points and 6.2 assists per game, it’s nowhere near the dominance that Whiteside has displayed for the Heat so far this season.
Lin led a mediocre New York Knicks team to victories. Whiteside is breaking records.
Therein lies the key difference.
Next: Heat’s Best Two-Way Player?
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3. Heat’s Best Two-Way Player?
Are the Heat still Dwyane Wade’s team? Of course. That will always be the case until Wade calls it quits. He is the face of the franchise and led the team to its first championship in dramatic fashion.
However, who really is the Heat’s best player?
Wade—with Bosh currently sidelined—is Miami’s leading scorer. He is pacing the team with 21.2 points per game on an effective .474 field goal percentage.
While Wade ranks 18th in PER with a 21.85 rating, Whiteside blows him out of the water in that department. Though Hassan is not the scorer that Wade is, Wade is also not the defender that Whiteside is. Nor can Dwyane impact a game the way Whiteside can on both ends of the court.
Heat faithful will argue that Wade is still the Heat’s best player, but the advanced metrics point toward Whiteside laying claim to that honor.
Next: Contributions to the Heat’s Defense
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4. Contributions to the Heat’s Defense
A reoccurring theme in this article has been about Whiteside’s dominance, particularly on the defensive side of the ball.
Because Hassan has only played in 35 games this season, he does not qualify for the majority of advanced metric statistics. However, if one is to take a look at the 7-foot center’s stats, they would see that he would rank among the league leaders had he played in enough games.
For example, the league leader among all qualified players in rebounding rate is DeAndre Jordan of the Los Angeles Clippers. Jordan is grabbing boards at a 23.9 percentage clip.
What is Whiteside’s rebounding rate number? It’s 27.2 percent. That numbers not only exceeds Jordan’s, but blows it out of the water.
The league leader in offensive rebounding rate is the Detroit Pistons’ Andre Drummond, who is grabbing offensive boards at a 17.4 percent clip.
Guess what? Whiteside’s offensive rebounding rate is at 17.4 also.
The NBA’s block percentage leader is the Utah Jazz’s Rudy Gobert, who has a clip of 7.7 percent.
Whiteside’s block percentage number is an astronomical 9.3 percent.
It’s not only that Hassan would be leading all three of these major categories had he played the entire season; it’s that he’s far and away the most dominant player in all three metric categories.
Next: Biggest Impact out of Contenders
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5. Biggest Impact out of Contenders
When voters are to think of candidates for this year’s Most Improved Player award, names such as Jimmy Butler, Anthony Davis, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green will be the top players that pop up.
In the case of Butler, he’s currently leading (along with Pau Gasol) the Chicago Bulls to a top four record in the East, while posting 20.2 points per game. Butler recently garnered his first All-Star selection, and is clearly playing better than last season when he averaged 13.1 PPG.
Davis has the New Orleans Pelicans on the verge of entering the postseason, and he is having a dominant season himself. The 6’10” big is leading the league in blocks per game (2.8) and PER (31.73). Not to mention, he is averaging 24.7 PPG and 10.4 RPG.
However, he did average amazing numbers last season as well, posting averages of 20.8 PPG and 10.0 RPG.
Both Thompson and Green have aided the Golden State Warriors in achieving the best record in the NBA. Thompson is putting up 21.7 PPG while Green is displaying an all-around game at the small forward spot, as he’s averaging 8.3 RPG, 1.6 steals a game and 1.4 blocks per contest.
With the exception of Davis, none of these players come close to the impact and dominance that Whiteside has had on the Heat this season.
As far as Davis versus Whiteside goes, the Pelicans center is not dominating the glass, nor blocking shots at the rate that Whiteside is.
Next: Why Whiteside Faces an Uphill Battle
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Why Whiteside Faces an Uphill Battle
The two major arguments against Whiteside winning the MIP award will be this—number of games played and Anthony Davis.
The Heat center has played in just 35 of Miami’s 63 games played. That’s a little over half of the team’s season. Assuming he sees action in the Heat’s remaining 19 games, he will have played in just 55 games for the entire season.
Over the course of the award’s history, the least amount of games played by an MIP winner in a non-shortened season was Pervis Ellison of the Washington Bullets during the 1991-92 season. He performed in 66 games that year.
The second reason why Hassan faces an uphill battle is because of Anthony Davis. While Davis doesn’t dominate games on the glass and in the blocks department to the extent Hassan does, he clearly has Whiteside beat in scoring and has also played nearly the entire season for his team.
In all likelihood, Whiteside won’t win the award this season.
However, with all things considered the Heat’s young center deserves the award this season. No single player has improved more than Whiteside, and that’s what the award is really all about. While Davis was already one of the game’s top bigs last season, Whiteside was an absolute nobody.
There is not a single player in the NBA that has improved more than No. 21 and that is the reason he deserves this year’s MIP award.
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