[stag_dropcap font_size=”50px” style=”squared”]T[/stag_dropcap]here may not be a more fun to follow NBA trend right now than the play of Hassan Whiteside. Called up from the D-League in late November, Whiteside has set the league on fire since breaking into the Heat rotation, averaging 12.7 points, 9.3 rebounds and 3.6 blocks in 10 games this month (23.2 minutes per game). Whiteside is shooting a remarkable 68% from the field and owns a ludicrous 27.01 PER, which ranks sixth in the league ahead of LeBron James and just behind Stephen Curry.

Those numbers look loony, and they are, but Whiteside isn’t exactly in rarefied air. Lower that PER by a few points, which will surely occur naturally as Whiteside’s sample size builds up, and you have a numerical CV very similar to that of an Andre Drummond or DeAndre Jordan. This is the statistical template for a seven footer in 2015: high field goal percentage, dominant rebounding numbers and credible rim protection.

Whiteside’s emergence is representative of a philosophical change amongst NBA decision-makers and coaching staffs. If a team can secure a once-in-a-generation big like DeMarcus Cousins or Anthony Davis, they will do so with pleasure. But short of that, the ideal five-man is now someone exactly like Whiteside, although we must credit Tyson Chandler for essentially creating the role during Dallas’ championship run in 2011.

Whiteside is mobile, athletic and smart. He seamlessly and naturally fills the gaps on both ends of the floor, protecting the basket on one end while rattling the rim on the other. The Heat lost perhaps the most dynamic athlete of all-time this summer, which has made it tough for them to replicate the pace-and-space system that Erik Spoelstra crafted during LeBron’s time in Miami. Enter Whiteside, a player whose athleticism demands tremendous attention on both ends of the floor, and suddenly things are looking better for the Heat.

Whiteside’s presence has immediately been felt on the defensive end, where the Heat have been in shambles this season. Placing a rim protector behind Chris Bosh, whose offensive workload has grown this season, has been monumental for the Heat, as it takes some of the burden off of Bosh’s shoulders and allows Whiteside to act as a game-changing shot-blocker. According NBA.com’s SportVU data, Whiteside currently rates out as the third best rim protector in basketball. Opposing teams shoot just 40.2% at the rim against Whiteside, putting him behind two defensive superstars in Serge Ibaka (40.1%) and Rudy Gobert (37.1%) in that category.

Although you can make a case that Whiteside’s first huge game was his 23-point, 16-rebound game against the Clippers, there’s no denying that his ridiculous 14-point, 13-rebound, 12-block triple-double on Sunday against Chicago was his most impressive performance to date. Whiteside became just the second active player and the third since 2001 to reach 12 blocks in a game, emphatically rejecting the Bulls any time they came near the rim. You can count on two hands the amount of players that can make these kind of athletic plays at the rim.

Whiteside has supplemented his shotblocking prowess with a strong commitment to rebounding, pairing two qualities that don’t always go together. The Heat has been a dreadful rebounding team over the past few seasons, but they are actually collecting 51.2% of available rebounds with Whiteside on the floor. For perspective, over the course a full season, that would move Miami (currently ranked 27th in rebound rate) to a very solid 7th behind the Bulls and in front of the Rockets and Spurs. Whiteside’s personal rebound rate of 24.5% currently leads the league in front of a pair of familiar names at No. 2 and No. 3: Drummond and Jordan.

Offensively, Whiteside has the most valuable quality you can possess as a seven footer in this era: Gravitational pull. Any time Whiteside dives to the rim off of a screen-and-roll, defenses must pinch their defense in order to deter him from an easy dunk. If they don’t, he throws it down. If they do, someone is open on the weakside. It seems simple, but being able to cut hard to the rim is a very valuable skill for an NBA big man. This quality is what makes a player like Brandan Wright a frightening asset in the right hands.

Miami capitalizes on this by spreading things out and running high pick-and-rolls with either of their big men, and sometimes both. Take for instance, this high pick-and-roll against the Bucks on Tuesday night.

With Danny Granger and Norris Cole stationed in the corners, both Whiteside and Bosh head to the top of the perimeter to set screens for Chalmers. Chalmers chooses not to use both of the screens, instead circling around Bosh’s pick toward the left elbow, where he is quickly met by Zaza Pachulia and Brandon Knight, who chased over the screen. Pachulia is defending Whiteside when the play begins, but as he slides over to stop Chalmers’ dribble penetration, Jared Dudley, who was originally guarding Bosh, has to back up into the paint to prevent Whiteside from diving right to the rim. This leaves Bosh wide open at the top of the key for an in rhythm three-pointer.

This is simple but effective offense. With shooters spacing the floor in each corner pocket, Whiteside rolling to the rim, a point guard probing to the foulline and a big man that can rain threes from deep, the defense is forced to make tough choices. The Bucks could have done better here; Dudley could have stuck with Bosh, leaving the onus on Khris Middleton to crash down from the corner to bump Whiteside on his dive, but even then you are leaving a guy wideopen from one of the most efficient areas of the floor.

And what happens when defenses don’t dedicate a defender to chucking Whiteside aside on his trek to the rim? This.

First of all, this is an awesome set from Spoelstra with tremendous off-ball movement. You’ll notice that Whiteside doesn’t even set a screen here, but the effect is the same. DeAndre Jordan comes up to help J.J. Redick keep Wade from getting to the middle of the floor, and because Bosh is such a threat from deep, Blake Griffin can’t help long enough to actually get Whiteside off track, allowing Wade to find Whiteside on the alley-oop.

This is how Whiteside is going to score the vast majority of his points, although I figured I would include this beautiful post-move from last night. Here Whiteside puts John Henson, who is a solid defender, into the blender for a beautiful AND-1. I doubt we are going to see much of this going forward, but if he can pull that off once or twice a week, it can make a big difference.

Whiteside still struggles with a couple of things that can prevent big men from reaching their full potential – he’s making just 55% of his free throws and he averages 6.7 fouls per 48 minutes – but that hasn’t stopped him from having an extremely positive impact on the Heat.

Whiteside leads all Heat regulars with a +3.0 net rating per 100 possessions and the team does just about everything better with him on the court. They score at a more efficient rate, they defend credibly with him governing the paint, they pull down many more offensive rebounds and, most importantly, they look like a cohesive team with a big man in the middle that disrupts things for the opponent on both ends of the court.

You have to convince yourself not to overreact to a 19-game sample size, but this doesn’t necessarily seem like a fluke. Logically it appears that way since super-effective NBA players don’t often have to spend a year playing in China or Lebanon during their formative basketball years, particularly when they are seven feet tall, but we aren’t seeing fluke-ish qualities from Whiteside. Sure, his true-shooting percentage is sky high, but that’s a product of the shots he’s taking, which is a product of his role. We are six years into DeAndre Jordan’s career and we know by now that his shooting numbers aren’t a fluke; it’s merely a product of extremely careful selection.

Another reason I buy what Whiteside is doing is that he’s not wowing us with a never-before-seen skillset. Most of Whiteside’s success is tied to his athleticism, which is what allows him to be an incredibly efficient scorer (read: dunker) and a harassing shotblocker. There are a lot of things that a player can feign during a monthlong run, but athleticism isn’t one of them. Unless he’s masking stone hands with stickem, which would then spark the most ridiculous equipment-related scandal in sports since last week, there is little reason to believe that he can’t keep being tall and keep rolling hard to the rim.

What can change are Whiteside’s surroundings (or, in this case, the opponent’s awareness of his surroundings), which is critical for someone cast in this Tyson Chandler role. We saw what happened to Chandler as his stint in New York went on and as the personnel around him worsened. Not surprisingly, now that he is back in Dallas and reunited Rick Carlisle and his stable of shooters, Chandler is thriving again.

This is because these diving pick-and-roll big men are very reliant on their surroundings, just as those surrounding them are very reliant on them. If teams start forcing the Heat to burn them from deep, which would be a calculated challenge against a team that ranks 21st in the NBA in three-point shooting (and they’ve been even worse during this Whiteside run), and start sending an extra man into the paint to prevent Whiteside from getting an easy dunk without harsh repercussions, then it’s obvious that his numbers will go down. The same can be said on the other end where foul trouble may perk up and bother the big man as it did early in his career, eating away at his minutes and, thus, his role.

But even considering those risks, I think I’m sold on Whiteside being capable of filling that Chandler role as well as Jordan or Drummond. If that turns out to be the case, it will have been a godsend for Miami, as they desperately needed a player just like Whiteside to come in and protect the rim, thus allowing Bosh to slide back to the power forward spot, which is less physically demanding and allows him to age more gracefully.

The Heat could stand to complement Whiteside with better shooting, but a crunchtime triad of Wade (playmaker), Bosh (scorer/shooter) and Whiteside (roll man) can make for some killer basketball even with league average three-point shooters around them. With Deng, who is shooting 38% from three on the year, and perhaps Danny Granger (39% from three) around them, the Heat would have a killer offensive unit and just enough perimeter defense to make things work down the stretch.

Whatever Spoelstra, one of the game’s most creative and forward-thinking coaches, cooks up going forward, it’s obvious that the Heat are far better off with Whiteside around. And that’s the dream outcome when you’re signing a guy off of the Iowa Energy.