Hottest zone: In the paint
— 357-of-521 (68.5 percent)
— League average (57.9 percent)
Coldest zone: Center of court; midrange
— 16-of-56 FG, (28.6 percent)
— League average (42.2 percent)
For some reason, I was so looking forward to this one, just to see how adventurous Hassan Whiteside was this season. You get the feeling he practices for even the unlikeliest of moments — perhaps a game-winning 3 from the corner, or something to that degree. Case in point: does anyone remember his turnaround fade-away that oozed of Kobe vibes to seal the game in Los Angeles? Yeah, me too.
If you aren’t observing closely, it’s almost easy to miss some of the nuances of Whiteside’s game. Throughout his career, he’s been respectable from 16-feet and beyond. It makes up such a small sub-section of his offensive work, but he’s shot 43.5 and 43.2 percent from that era, essentially hitting three of every seven.
Whiteside has taken 148 shots outside of the paint this year, and has actually been really solid on limited volume from that right side.
A lot of these looks either come when the defense blitzes the pick-and-roll on say, McCollum, Lillard or Simons, allowing Whiteside to pop and flee to the far side and let it fly. If not that, Whiteside takes advantage of inbounds situations, when opposing bigs are more-or-less trained to stay and protect the rim.
But there’s a nice collection here. Whiteside’s got a little bit of a face-up game, and even though it isn’t Aldridge-esque, he can turn that shoulder and fade-away, too.
Perhaps the most entertaining section of Whiteside’s zone work is how he’s been able to become a 57.1 percent 3-point shooter (granted, on seven attempts). He’s cold from just inside that, but methinks that if given more looks from outside, he could use that Marcus Camby-like form and put some shots in from deep.
And, needless to say, the undrafted stud is a menace in the paint, shooting 10.6 percent better than the league average from there. One might not usually associate Whiteside with being a super “fun” player to watch, but let my League Pass subscription show, I’ll gladly do so.