Hassan Whiteside

C – 6’11” – Marshall

 

 

The next post in a quality series from our valued TWolves Blog Forum member “Pants.”  His forum posts and further discussion can be found HERE.  (Feel free to join us, we’re always looking for more quality members.)  As a poor follower of the Wolves, Pants is always trying to talk himself into a light at the end of the tunnel. Usually that means talking himself into players we have, or could potentially have. How many guys will be stars from this draft, probabably a few? Will they be available to the Wolves? He’s going to do his best to convince himself that they will be.

The consensus is that no one thinks more highly of Hassan Whiteside than Hassan Whiteside.  Having Midwestern sensibilities and being recently burned by Randy Foye, there are few other red flags as great as inflated self-worth.  There would be nothing better for Mr. Whiteside than to be drafted out of the top 10.  Guys who are nearly 7 feet tall get cut a little slack for two reasons: first, they are on a short list of guys big enough to play center; and secondly, it has to be so damn odd to walk around being that tall that it would have to warp your view on the world.





The first thing you’ll notice is that Whiteside looks nothing like the standard small school 7 footer who hits the scene out of nowhere.  He isn’t awkward, slow, or very rough on offense.  He looks every-bit the part of a hyped center prospect out of North Carolina or Kentucky.  He wasn’t playing 30+ minutes every game, but he had a couple of stretches where he was for a week or two at a time.  He isn’t going to look completely gassed after 5 minutes on the court.

This shot looks surprisingly comfortable.  I’m surprised he wasn’t a better FT shooter, but these guys with monster hands really can’t help it.  His 3 triple doubles with blocks is a pretty nice stat.  For all the talk about his inflated self-worth, it didn’t translate into him being a chucker.  He only took more than 12 shots twice, and he scored 20 points in both of those games.  It seems like when he’s out on the floor he knows how to pick his spots.

I hope his personality scares off a few teams, because there hasn’t been a better guy to pair with Al Jefferson in the last 2 drafts.  If Al is gone/traded, could we see great ally-oops from Love to Whiteside?  The Wolves have been dying for a franchise Center for just as long as they’ve waited for a PG.  Last year Rubio fell into their laps.  Could Whiteside be the one who breaks the “Center curse”?

If you had to bet on the career of Greg Oden or Hassan Whiteside right now, who would you take?

Oh and I almost forgot, the other 7 footer on our roster (who happens to be terrible)… remember him?  Check out Ryan Hollins’ college stats, he was SIGNIFICANTLY worse than Hassan Whiteside when he was a 4 year Senior.  He was neither a good rebounder or shot-blocker.

For more of the “Talking Myself Into…” series see here:

Xavier Henry
James Anderson
Jordan Crawford
Paul George