At the TNT halftime show of the Blazers and Clippers game, Charles Barkley and Shaq O’Neal RIPPED into Hassan Whiteside for his effort in the game.
Shaq’s opening statement is below via OregonLive:
“All you players, if this is your contract year, ball out,” O’Neal said. “Play with effort. Play. Whiteside, this is his contract year. Tonight, he’s playing with no effort. If this is my contract year and they’re handing out $250, $300 million, what do you think I’m going to do, Kenny (Smith)? Ball out.”
After Shaq had said this, they showed a montage of Hassan Whiteside looking slow with help defenses, bad shots, traveling violations, everything that showed that he wasn’t playing well at all in the first half. The exchange about Whiteside continued on between Charles Barkley and Shaq O’Neal:
“Whiteside needs to pick it up if he’s trying to get new money,” O’Neal said. “Last time he was playing on a contract year, he had a great year, he got a lot of money. And Chuck seems to think ever since he got the new money, he’s not really playing anymore.”
“That’s because he don’t,” Barkley replied.
“I don’t feel that way,” O’Neal continued. “But I would like to see more effort out of Hassan Whiteside.”
“He got that money with the Miami Heat, then packed it in,” Barkley said. “The Blazers was stupid enough to take him. He hasn’t played with effort for years.”
Hassan Whiteside heard of the critique in the locker room and immediately started to ball out in the second half in response to the criticism. He had 15 points, 13 rebounds, and 2 blocks in just the second half to finish off with 17 points, 19 rebounds, and those 2 blocks. After the game, when asked about the criticism he was facing he said this is reply:
“You can’t average a double-double and not give effort,” Whiteside said, when asked about the critics. “You can’t go out there and get all them rebounds without giving effort. I would love to tell them to go try it.”
While I can appreciate Whiteside standing up for himself, Shaq and Barkley have put up numbers like that before. They’re all-time greats in the basketball world so the quote doesn’t make much sense in that aspect.
Hassan Whiteside has played decent this year. But for how much his contract is, one can say he is underperforming for what his contract is worth. As Shaq mentioned, he is in a contract year, he should be ballin’ out every game to try to keep that same kind of income in next year. Hassan Whiteside hasn’t received much respect since his Miami Heat days, unlike Damian Lillard. The Blazers lost this game, so the criticism still lingered after the game despite the impressive second-half showing. The Blazers play the Nets next, let’s see if Hassan Whiteside shows that kind of effort for the full game.
