How mad do you think Hassan Whiteside gets when he gets benched by Spoelstra even when playing well and then has to watch Kelly Olynyk run around and be the softest player in the league? Really mad? Overwhelmingly mad? Not mad at all?
I’m going to go with “mad as heck” on this one. He’s the kind of guy who would be extremely resentful of players he perceives to be taking his “earned” minutes. And honestly, at this point, I don’t know why he wouldn’t get to play more. And even more honestly, it seems like an Olynyk/Whiteside twin towers lineup could maybe work if the other team really sucked. Olynyk can play outside and be soft, Whiteside can play inside and be soft but in a different way.
Maybe tonight Whiteside wasn’t as rage-filled, because Olynyk had his best scoring game of the season. It came on the back of a bunch of shots that probably shouldn’t have gone in, and wouldn’t have had the basketball gods not smiled on him because they were sorry they couldn’t stop Dennis Schroder and Paul George from torching everything in sight.