Dwyane Wade was offended when Miami Heat paid Hassan Whiteside before him
02/27/2025 08:39 PM
Longtime Miami Heat guard Dwyane Wade put the kibosh on the premise that he would spend the entirety of his pro career with the Heat organization with a decision he made in the 2016 offseason. After playing for the Heat for the first 10-plus seasons of his career, he agreed to a two-year deal to join the Chicago Bulls.
That very same offseason, Miami rewarded big man Hassan Whiteside with a four-year max deal after he averaged a double-double and led the league in blocks per game in the 2015-16 campaign.
Wade recently admitted that he was offended that the Heat paid Whiteside before they paid him.
“They wanted to go after Kevin Durant,” Wade said of the Heat’s offseason intentions. “We had Hassan Whiteside, a player that came out of the G League, had a great year, and was up for $100 million. I'm sitting here like, I want young fella to get his money…but y'all about to pay him over me? Take care of me first. Then, let's take care of young fella. Because I've shown it. I've proven it. This is proven. And they didn't do it. They didn't get Kevin Durant, either.”
It’s easy to see why Wade was offended at the time. After all, he had already established himself as maybe the best player in franchise history at that point. Whiteside, on the other hand, was still relatively unproven and just recently found his footing at the NBA level.
The rationale for Miami re-signing Whiteside may have been due to a multitude of reasons. However, Wade was well into his 30s at that juncture and not the superstar talent he once was.
As for Whiteside, he was still a spring chicken at that point and looked primed to be Miami’s starting center for years to come. Whiteside carved out several more highly productive seasons with the Heat as well after signing an extension. He was a consistent threat to rack up double digits in points and rebounds on a game-to-game basis until his time with the team ended after the 2018-19 campaign.
Across 324 career regular-season games played in a Miami uniform, he averaged 14.1 points, 11.9 rebounds and 2.4 blocked shots per contest. What’s more, he shot 57.5 percent from the field and 59.5 percent from the charity stripe with the Heat.
It’s unfortunate that Wade wasn’t one of a select group of players to spend the entirety of their NBA careers with one team, but he is a Heat icon nonetheless. Without his contributions, it seems hard to believe that Miami would have three titles over the course of the history of the esteemed franchise.
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