Is free agent Hassan Whiteside worth max contract from Heat?

As the Heat put together a pitch to secure Hassan Whiteside long-term, they hope he’s ready to move on from the mentality of using big numbers to prove everybody wrong.

Whiteside’s basketball life to this point has been all about knocking down doubters, and his method when he returned to the NBA two years ago from an overseas digression was putting up startling statistics. One of the first monster games he had for Miami was against the Clippers, and his immediate thought afterward was making sure everyone knew Doc Rivers turned him down for a tryout. When he started putting uptriple-doubles, he coined his new catchphrase, “nobody’s doing it with blocks.”

Now he’s got the chance to emphasize his point with what many players view as the ultimate number: a gigantic salary. Outside of Kevin Durant, Whiteside is arguably the most coveted free agent on the open market this summer and could hear offers in excess of $80 million over four years. There are at least a dozen teams with the need and the money to make that happen.

“I kinda hoped it’d be like this, but I never thought they’d be talking about the free agency numbers and all that stuff like they are,” Whiteside said late in the season. “That all happened really quick.”

The Heat are about to find out how much all of these numbers truly mean to Whiteside. The organization has a history of players making sacrifices to give Pat Riley the best possible chance to build a contending roster, and it’s hoping Whiteside will be open to that.

"Riley said of the upcoming negotiations.

You find out how much he wants to win,”

Whiteside might not have any interest in taking less, given that this is his first chance to grab a mountain of cash. He played for less than $1 million each of the past two seasons in Miami, and Basketball-Referencecharts his career earnings at $3.2 million. Ten teammates made more than him this year.

There’s always a risk, too, of him feeling insulted by a smaller offer. With other franchises free to discuss a max deal at 12:01 a.m. on July 1, Whiteside quickly could be whisked away. That would leave Miami to consider replacements such as Al Horford, Joakim Noah and Dwight Howard.

Unless Whiteside’s number gets so high that the Heat believe it precludes them from making a legitimate run at Durant, they likely will pay whatever it takes to keep a dominant center just entering his prime. While Whiteside turns 27 next week, last year was his first full season in the NBA and he has shown rapid progress in two years with Miami.

From that breakout demonstration against Los Angeles through the end of the 2014-15 season, he averaged 13.9 points, 11.8 rebounds and 2.8 blocks per game. Those statistics held steady in the first half of this season, then rose to 17.5, 13.3 and 3.4 after the All-Star break.

There’s been a gradual climb and he’s better now than ever, especially considering he polished several of the subtle parts of his game such as setting screens and overall defensive positioning in the second half of the season.

His offensive game looks like it could far exceed what he’s shown so far. Whiteside clearly has good touch on his jumper and used that to drastically up his free-throw percentage during the season. He shot 76.4 percent from the line the final two months after previously going 52.4 percent for his career.

Miami envisions more from him once he gets the validation of a massive contract — even with a discount for the Heat it’s hard to see him signing for less than $60 million — now that there will be nothing left for him to prove individually. Riley senses he’s on the verge of transforming into the type of player who bolsters everyone around him and helps power a team into championship contention.

“I think now he’ll be more comfortable once this situation ends,” Riley said at the end of the season. “When a player spends six years of his career having everybody tell him why he’s not good enough to be in the NBA, when he gets an opportunity, what young players do first is, ‘I want to show you I’m good enough to play in the NBA.’ That could be individually important, but not as good for the team.

“Once that’s out of the way, the roof is the ceiling because he’s shown all of us that he can be a 15 (points) and 15 (rebounds) and four blocked shots and 70 percent field goals guy. But there are other layers to his game that I think he can be even better at.”

If that’s true, he’ll be worth every cent.