Utah Jazz center Hassan Whiteside 2021-22 Goal #3: A True Shooting % north of 60%
This should be an achievable goal for Whiteside, by virtue of his role if nothing else. The vast majority of his field goal attempts figure to be dunks and floaters, as 99.4% of his field goals attempted last season were from two-point range.
Looking at Whiteside’s career, he absolutely has the capacity to hit this mark, although it’s far from a certainty. On the one hand, he’s only surpassed a 60 True Shooting % (TS%) three times out of his nine seasons in the NBA. Obviously, it’s not a threshold he’s typically surpassed. On the other hand, his career 59.7 TS% is indicative of a player who has generally at least flirted with it.
Spacing might be the NBA’s hottest commodity. Last season, the Utah Jazz optimized theirs by featuring a highly efficient roll man at the 5 spot in Gobert (68.3 TS%), surrounded by four three-point threats at almost every juncture of every game. While the Utah Jazz won’t regularly feature five-out spacing (short of small-ball formations with Rudy Gay or Eric Paschall manning the middle), vertical spacing has its own value.
Gobert achieves vertical space with his remarkable 7’9 wingspan. Whiteside’s 7’7 reach isn’t quite as impressive, but he is able to compensate with a superior vertical leap. He should subsist on a heavy diet of dunks and layups within Quin Snyder’s offense, maximizing both the team’s and his own efficiency in the process.
Hassan Whiteside’s first season as a member of the Utah Jazz will be fascinating to watch. He has been an effective-but-flawed player throughout the course of his strange NBA journey. Hopefully, he can achieve each of the three goals outlined in this article over the 2020-21 season, and provide the club with more of his effectiveness than his flaws.