Hassan Whiteside presents free agency's most interesting dilemma. Does it make sense to commit max money to a player who was out of the NBA 20 months ago?
The 7-footer's size, age (27) and prodigious box score stats (14.2 points, 11.8 rebounds and a league-leading 3.7 blocks per game) say yes, maybe even with an exclamation mark. Whiteside's more ordinary rating in ESPN's real plus-minus (RPM) throws up a caution flag, though.
The question becomes even more interesting for a team like the Los Angeles Lakers, for whom cap space has more value than it does for teams that aren't in destination markets for free agents. Yet ESPN's Marc Stein and Ramona Shelburne reported last weekend that the Lakers plan to "aggressively" pursue Whiteside in free agency.
So, should the Lakers max out Whiteside?
Yes: Whiteside's advanced box score stats are strong
Noting Whiteside's per-game stats in the intro undersold him, in a way. He's not a number compiler who puts up impressive point and rebound totals in big minutes on lots of shot attempts. Whiteside is efficient: Those per-game averages came in just 29.1 minutes per game, and he shot 60.6 percent from the field.
Whiteside finished ninth in the league with 14.2 wins above replacement player (WARP) by my metric, and he ranked seventh among rotation players in player efficiency rating (PER). LeBron James and Kevin Durant are the lone free agents ahead of him in either category. From that standpoint, there's no doubt Whiteside is a max player.
No: Whiteside's team impact may not match stats
As noted, Whiteside ranks a lot lower in RPM: 81st, just ahead of fellow free-agent center Festus Ezeli.
When it comes to team performance, Whiteside's impact hasn't matched his statistical production. The Heat were barely better with Whiteside on the court (plus-3.0 points per 100 possessions) than on the bench (plus-2.2) during the 2015-16 regular season, according to NBA.com/Stats.
That partly reflects Miami's rotations and the team's success playing Chris Bosh at center before the All-Star break, but RPM attempts to account for these factors by adjusting for the other players on the court, and that doesn't entirely save Whiteside's rating.
Moreover, Whiteside doesn't rate nearly as well as PER or WARP by box plus-minus, which weights box score stats by how well they predict adjusted plus-minus for all players. One trend box plus-minus has revealed is that players with low assist rates tend to not be as valuable offensively as their own scoring would suggest.
Lo and behold, Whiteside handed out just 30 assists last season, by far the fewest of any player who played at least 2,000 minutes. (Steven Adams of the Oklahoma City Thunder and Tristan Thompson of the Cleveland Cavaliers had 62 apiece.)
Then there's the matter of Whiteside's shot-blocking. His 3.7 blocks per game were 1.4 more than anyone else averaged last season (DeAndre Jordan of the L.A. Clippers was second at 2.3 per game), and the most in the NBA in 15 years. (Theo Ratliff, in 2000-01, was the last player to average as many blocks.)
While Whiteside was the league's best shot-blocker, it's not at all clear that he was the league's best rim protector. According to SportVU tracking data on NBA.com/Stats, opponents shot 46.9 percent within 5 feet when Whiteside was the nearest defender, ranking him 13th in the league.
Whiteside contested so many shots (only Pau Gasol of the Chicago Bulls defended more per game inside 5 feet) that Nylon Calculus' rim-protection metrics still show him saving the most points per game with his defense around the rim of anyone in the NBA, but it's a lot closer than blocks per game would suggest.
Yes: Whiteside is still improving
Having just turned 27, Whiteside should be at about his peak as an NBA player. For his age, however, he's remarkably inexperienced.
Whiteside played just one year at Marshall and didn't establish himself in the NBA until midway through last season. Even if we count both college and the D-League, Whiteside has played less than 5,500 minutes of high-level basketball -- far fewer than James, for example, played by age 21.
There are indications Whiteside is developing with experience. Take his assist rate, for example. Whiteside had six assists in 1,142 minutes in 2014-15 (one every 190 minutes or so) and 15 in 1,271 minutes before last year's All-Star break (one every 85 minutes). After the break, Whiteside matched that total in 855 minutes, improving his rate all the way to one every 57 minutes.
Whiteside's assist rate didn't improve in the playoffs (he had three in 291 minutes), but his rim protection did. Opponents made just 43.8 percent of their attempts inside 5 feet against Whiteside in the postseason, a rate that would have ranked fifth in the league during the regular season.
No: Signing Whiteside makes it difficult to offer two max contracts in 2017
The Lakers' dream is to have enough cap space in the summer of 2017 to allow two players from the star-studded crop of free agents to team up in L.A. Giving Whiteside a max contract would make that difficult.
Even though Whiteside is still in the lowest category of max salaries, limiting him to approximately $21 million this season, adding him would give the Lakers about $55 million in committed salary for 2017-18, not counting a new contract for Jordan Clarkson or the Lakers' 2017 first-round pick if it falls in the top three.
The Lakers could create more space by trading guards Lou Williams and Nick Young (the latter probably costing them draft picks to shed). Still, to get to the $60 million space under the projected $107 million cap necessary to add two players with at least seven years of experience, the Lakers would probably have to trade at least one of their young talents.
Yes: Whiteside fills a need that can't be filled next summer
Despite that concern, I'd offer Whiteside a max contract and figure out the 2017 implications later. After all, Whiteside is nearly a perfect fit for the Lakers. They're in desperate need of a rim protector, a role free agent Roy Hibbert struggled to fill last season. The Lakers allowed opponents to shoot 55.9 percent inside 5 feet; only the Detroit Pistons were worse.
Hibbert was also a poor fit on offense because he struggles to catch and convert on pick-and-rolls. Power forward Julius Randle isn't much of a pick-and-roll player either, so guards Clarkson and D'Angelo Russell weren't able to run as many pick-and-rolls as their skills would suggest. According to player-tracking data, the Lakers ranked 22nd in the league in on-ball screens last season.
When the Lakers' guards did find their roll men, the results were ugly. Collectively, Lakers screeners averaged 0.83 points per chance last season on pick-and-rolls that ended with them shooting. The next-worst team in the league (the Sacramento Kings) averaged 0.95 points per chance on such scenarios. By contrast, Whiteside averaged 1.38 points per chance when finishing off pick-and-rolls, best of any player with at least 200 chances.
If the Lakers want to wait to sign someone like that next summer, he doesn't exist. As deep as the 2017 class of free agents potentially is with star talents such as Blake Griffin, Chris Paul and Russell Westbrook (plus perhaps Durant), the best unrestricted center on the market is probably Greg Monroe (who has a player option). There are some interesting young centers who will be restricted, but prying them away will be difficult, and none save Rudy Gobert is remotely as good as Whiteside.
So despite the valid concerns, I'd bet on Whiteside if I were the Lakers. And if it makes sense for them to max out Whiteside instead of saving their money for 2017, that surely holds for anyone else in the market for a center.