Center Hassan Whiteside told reporters Wednesday that he met with Miami Heat president Pat Riley and coach Erik Spoelstra last month and he is in a better place with the team now.
“We had a great talk,” Whiteside told reporters on a conference call to discuss Saturday’s NBA game in Africa, in which he plans to play. “I just think it’s trust on both sides. I think that’s the biggest thing … It was about a four-hour meeting. It was a lot about life. It was two hours basketball, two hours life. It was a good meeting.”
Whiteside, who has two years remaining on his four-year, $98.4 million deal with the Heat, had publicly complained about his role and his lack of playing time in the playoffs after Miami’s loss in Game 3 to the Philadelphia 76ers. Whiteside played just 76 minutes total in the five games.
After the series, Riley told reporters that Whiteside wasn’t “ready” for the playoffs and that “he wasn’t in great shape.” Last week, Riley insisted that the Heat weren’t widely shopping Whiteside in trades this summer but said the center “has a lot of work to do.”
Whiteside, 29, who dealt with a knee injury last season and was limited to 54 games in the regular season, said Wednesday that he “wasn’t healthy all last year.”
“I was in and out of the rotation with injuries. Just coming back healthy. Coming back from a bone bruise, it takes months to heal,” he told reporters.
However, Wednesday he declared himself “completely healed” and said “I feel great.”
“I feel like my regular self again,” he said.
Source : ESPN
