Whiteside runs hard to get up to speed

Sprints with Steelers’ Brown on sand help his versatility

BOCA RATON — At times this summer Hassan Whiteside felt like he was running in sand.

He was.

Of course, running alongside Antonio Brown would make most NBA players feel that way.

As part of his attempt to improve his speed and agility for the upcoming Miami Heat season, Whiteside said Thursday he spent part of the offseason working out with Brown, the Pittsburgh Steelers star receiver and Liberty City product.

“Seeing how he works, working out with him,” Whiteside said after the third day of training camp at Florida Atlantic University. “He runs in the sand. That’s why nobody can guard him in the NFL. I really wanted to get faster, my lateral speed, my overall speed. That’s where I’ve been working, out on the beach.”

Back at the same 265 pounds he started off last season, Whiteside said he appreciates the need for speed in an NBA that now often features centers switching out on point guards, as was the case with the Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers in last season’s NBA Finals.

“The game is speeding up,” Whiteside said. “I really want to be very mobile. You know, my body feels great. I was in that sand, I told them I got it from Antonio Brown. He was in that sand a lot. I got the idea. So there were different drills.”

That didn’t mean he let go of his weight training, with sessions with Heat captain Udonis Haslem taking care of that aspect.

“I’d say Antonio is more agility,” he said. “Udonis more weightlifting. So UD’s going to lock you in that workout room, so you’re going to leave like your body’s sore. They both got different ways.”

Whiteside began the offseason working in private sessions. But for someone practically wed to social media, through his Snapchat and Instagram posts, he found himself being derided for not posting workout videos like other players.

That’s when the torrent began.

“It gets annoying after a while,” Whiteside said. “Just because people

don’t see it, they think it’s not happening. I even made a joke on social media, ’I take showers every day, but you all never see ’em.’ It’s just because guys are not showing it.

“Fans want to see it, so I just post, post, post, post and all of a sudden it was like, ‘Man, you’re working out hard.’ I was like, ’I’ve been doing it. I just haven’t been showing it.’ ”

Whiteside said he found humorous the degree some players went to publicize their offseason workouts.

“I told the trainer just film,” he said. “I know NBA guys, they got film crews that follow them all over. I feel like that’s kind of overdoing. This is very genuine. I just maybe just show a fraction of the workouts.”

Because of the limited crossover of the offseasons, Whiteside said he took advantage of any time offered by Brown.

“We mostly talked,” he said. “That’s my guy. He’s a little bit faster than me, though.”

While Heat coach Erik Spoelstra has subtly adjusted the defense, he said it mostly will remain as it was, nothing close to the switch-everything approaches of teams such as the Houston Rockets.

“With some lineups for us it makes sense, and other lineups it makes sense to keep our strengths to our strengths,” Spoelstra said. “So we’ll try to do that balance. The most important thing is the emphasis and the pride you take on that end. It still comes down to commitment than schematics.”

But if asked to take challenges against fleeter opponents, Whiteside said he’s ready to emerge from the sand with his football speed.

“I take it like a challenge,” he said. “I want to do that. I want to switch more and I want to build that confidence in everybody that I can do that. That’s why I said I really wanted to get faster, do band work, running on the beach. I mean, NBA guards can’t stay in front of guards, so it’s going to be tough when you’re 265 and you’re 7 feet tall.”

Whiteside