eckles wrote:
I think you've been smoking some miami heat whiteside hype.
You're showing a pretty apparent lack of knowledge in regards to Miami (and even Philly with your Noel comment).
There is a reason he is getting the stats.
The guy is 25 and has little room for improvement, yes he is playing lights out but he is almost at his peak right now, after 4 seasons.
Why does Whiteside have little room for improvement and why is he at his peak? He was also 25 4 months ago, but he's improved tremendously since then (ask Toronto fans what he looked like during their summer league). He's getting one-on-one mentoring by both Juwan Howard and Alonzo Mourning (2 all-star bigs in the league). He's actually played in less total NBA games than Gobert.
Whiteside is the only front court player that can shot block in Miami, and has the youth and some length the grab the rebounds over Haslem and birdman that are nearing retirement, compared to Gobert, he has derick favors next to him who is also a shot blocker and good reboundar.
Birdman is a better shotblocker than anyone on Utah (outside of Gobert), so your proclamation is wrong off the bat. Further, you mention Whiteside grabbing rebounds over Birdman as if he has even shared one single minute on the court with him. You clearly don't watch Heat games, at all. Whiteside has probably played alongside Bosh (albeit a clearly unhealthy Bosh) more minutes than he has with Haslem. While Bosh is not a crazy shot blocker (still capable and in the same realm as Favors), he is a capable overall rim protector and served in that role for Miami for the past couple seasons (we had decent success, no?). In terms of rebounding, both Bosh and Haslem's total rebound % numbers for the past couple seasons are very similar to those of Favors, so I don't get this huge difference you're trying to portray. Whiteside does have that advantage of being the only real rebounder when the Heat play small ball though (a recent thing after Bosh's health scare).
Offensively, I want to see Dragic and Dwayne Wade dishing it out to Gobert like Whiteside had the luxury of compared to Exum, Trey Burke and Inglis.LMAO
Whiteside has played less than 6 full games with Dragic. Prior to the all-star break, Wade was missing huge chunks of time and Whiteside was playing with THE WORST backcourt rotation in the NBA (Chalmers, Cole, Napier and Tyler Johnson). He still put up his numbers and dominated. Again, you're making things up and proving your lack of actual attention paid to Miami.
Now Noel is better offensively right now, but no where near Defensively, LMA destroys Noel every time he faces 76ers.
If you're conceding that Noel is better offensively than Gobert right now, then you have to concede that Whiteside is as well, as he is by and large better than Noel by just about every category. The numbers speak for themselves, as does the eye test. IMO Whiteside's biggest advantage over these 2 is his touch around the basket (he also has some surprising footwork and a decent array of moves in addition to a reliable jumper). He has amazing touch around the basket. Nothing ever clanks off the rim.
With that said, all of these discussions of young emerging centers always seem to devolve into pissing competitions as if it is some sort of zero-sum game. The reality is both of these guys are tremendously exciting and promising young players to watch. IMO they have both shown enough up to this point to prove that they're gonna be around for years to come. Gobert is slightly ahead of Whiteside in overall defensive game right now, while Whiteside is ahead in terms of offensive impact.
We're lucky to have acquired these young pieces that will be key parts of our squads moving forward.
