Former Miami Heat center Hassan Whiteside, who last played in the NBA in the 2021-22 campaign, enjoyed his best years in the league with Miami.
After all, across his five seasons with the Heat, he put together a campaign where he led the league in rebounds and one where he led the league in blocked shots per contest. Plus, he finished in the top five in the Defensive Player of the Year voting twice.
Years removed from his dominant defensive seasons in a Heat uniform, he’s reportedly taking his talents overseas and to the country of China. Whiteside is slated to join the Shanghai Sharks for the upcoming CBA campaign.
Whiteside will join a Sharks team that is already nothing short of replete with former NBA draft picks. First off, guard Tyler Harvey was drafted by the Orlando Magic with the No. 51 overall pick back in the 2015 NBA Draft, though he never actually played a game in the league.
Moreover, center Zhelin Wang was a second-round pick in the 2016 NBA Draft, and forward D.J. Wilson was a first-round pick in the 2017 NBA Draft. Wilson actually stuck around in the best basketball league in the world for a while, as he was in the NBA for six seasons and logged 148 total regular-season appearances in that time.
Heat fans should expect Whiteside to look similarly effective on the defensive end as he did in his days in Miami now that he will be facing off against subpar competition. Whiteside is nothing short of a gifted rim protector, and he averaged as many as 3.7 blocks per game in a season with the Heat. He even ranked tops in the league in blocked shots per contest again in the later stages of his pro career when he was with the Portland Trail Blazers.
In all likelihood, he will serve as a defensive anchor for the Sharks, who will in turn stack up plenty of wins over the course of the season. It won’t be easy for opposing teams to score in the painted area when Whiteside is in the game and parked down low.