It is no secret that Hassan Whiteside is about to cash in big this summer.
Whiteside will be a free agent and it will be hard to envision a scenario where the Miami Heat can afford to re-sign the 7-foot center. Barring a miracle, it’s highly probable that the young center will sign elsewhere with a team that can afford to shell out the money for his services.
While the 26-year-old is aware of this likely scenario, he stresses that he doesn’t care about the money, via Shams Charania of Yahoo! Sports:
“I never aimed for the money. Before I came to the NBA last [season], per year, I would have made more going to China than on my Miami Heat contract. If I went, I might have just stayed in China. I wasn’t chasing the dollars, though. I was chasing the dream of becoming an amazing NBA player. All of that comes, obviously. The contract, the fame. Even before I knew anything about money, I was a little kid and I didn’t know how much these players made. I wanted that – to be on TV, to have people looking up to me.”
Whiteside may state that “he has never aimed for the money,” but the cold reality is there will be several NBA teams willing to throw a max contract his way once the salary cap increases.
Although much has been made about the Heat performing better on the court without Whiteside, his individual statistics are hard to ignore—he recently posted 19 points, 17 rebounds and 11 blocks in a win over the Denver Nuggets without starters Dwyane Wade and Goran Dragic in the lineup.
The 7-foot center is also averaging 11.3 rebounds and 4.0 blocks per game, ranking fourth and first in each of those statistical categories.
The bottom line is this—it may not be all about the money for Whiteside, but to believe for one second that he doesn’t care the slightest about $100 million thrown his way, that would be foolish.
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