South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)
Looking on bright side of Whiteside
Spoelstra wishes former center well, but fresh start should help both
MIAMI — As Erik Spoelstra spoke during his season-opening media session, there was a sense he was talking in code.
Of prized offseason free agent Jimmy Butler, the Miami Heat coach noted, “The relationship between the highest-paid player and the head coach is the most important one in this building.” Of center Bam Adebayo, he said, “He was one of the more impactful centers in terms of winning in the league. That’s the only thing that matters to me.”
Of Adebayo as a leader, even at 22, Spoelstra said, “Bam understands the concept of a team and bringing out more out of somebody else, and he finds enjoyment and pride out of making somebody else better.”
At no point during the session did Spoelstra utter the words “Hassan” or “Whiteside.”
Then again, no one asked because the opening week of training camp is not the time for manufactured tension, especially when there had been so much friction over the previous five seasons.
But during a quiet moment, away from the cameras and microphones, Spoelstra was asked to reflect on the center who arrived in 2014 as a vortex of post disruption, was coaxed back with a $98 million contract in July 2016, then was phased out of the starting lineup and eventually shipped to the Portland Trail Blazers in July as part of the Butler cap machinations.
“I enjoyed working with Hassan,” Spoelstra said, “and I think he’ll look back on it at some point and think that we brought a better level out of him.”
To Spoelstra, the parabolic ascent and then descent of Whiteside’s Heat career was a product of factors beyond the control of both center and coach.
Chris Bosh was healthy, then wasn’t. Dwyane Wade was a teammate, then wasn’t, then was again. Dion Waiters and James Johnson were revelations, then regressed. Along the way, Whiteside had his share of injuries.
“It’s unfortunate the way some of the teams turned out,” Spoelstra said of Whiteside’s Heat rosters. “And some of the adversities that we had, we weren’t really able to see what was possible.”
Still, it also eventually became fair to question whether there truly was commitment to the now-30-year-old 7-footer, especially during the one-month period that bridged June and July in 2017, first when Adebayo was selected at No. 14 out of Kentucky in that year’s lottery and then when Kelly Olynyk was signed in free agency away from the Boston Celtics weeks later. Ultimately, the two supplanted Whiteside in the starting power rotation at the end of last season.
The irony is that it well could have been Adebayo, Olynyk and Whiteside again this season had there not been a misunderstanding with the Dallas Mavericks at the outset of this summer’s freeagency period over another trade that would have freed up the needed cap space for Butler.
Ultimately, moving Whiteside to the Trail Blazers and adding the Los Angeles Clippers into the equation allowed the Heat to complete the Butler sign-andtrade. Now there is a fresh start for Whiteside and perhaps a fresher outlook for Spoelstra.
“It doesn’t matter where you live if you aren’t happy on the court,” Whiteside said during Portland’s media day. “I wanted to come here for years.”
In many ways, in greener pastures.
“Everything is so green, so fresh,” Whiteside said of his new rain-soaked vista. “I think I’m going to surprise a lot of people.”
It is success that Spoelstra, for all those previous prickly moments, would not begrudge.
“I like him as a human being,” Spoelstra said during a private moment on the Heat’s practice court at AmericanAirlines Arena, “and I liked coaching him. And
I’ll continue to root for him, as I would anybody else that comes through here.”