Why Hassan Whiteside watches 4th quarters from the bench

A familiar script played out for the Miami Heat in Phoenix on Friday: Hassan Whiteside, a star big man averaging a double-double and leading the league by a mile in blocks, watched the final quarter-and-a-half of Miami's win from the bench.

Despite those gaudy numbers, keeping Whiteside off the court was once again the right decision by Erik Spoelstra. That seems hard to fathom considering the gap between Whiteside's 3.8 blocks per game and second-ranked Anthony Davis' 2.53 blocks is equivalent to the gap between Davis and the 25th-ranked Amir Johnson.

On the surface, Whiteside's basic numbers paint him as a Defensive Player of the Year candidate. He's looking to become the first player in a decade (minimum 1,000 minutes) to post a block percentage over 10, his defensive rebound rate of 30.4 percent trails only Andre Drummond (33.2) and DeAndre Jordan (31.8), and he leads the league in defensive plays made per foul committed.

There's obvious value in an athletic freak of Whiteside's size protecting the paint and cleaning the defensive glass. However, what the 3.8 blocks per game and mammoth block rate don't tell you about are the countless other defensive possessions that end in horror for Miami because Whiteside has either abandoned his man, his feet, or the Heat's defensive scheme in the poorly thought-out pursuit of an unlikely block.

When it works, the results can be mesmerizing. The majority of the time, though, they're probably maddening for Spoelstra and the Heat.

In Friday's win over the Suns, the Heat were a plus-17 with Whiteside on the bench, while the big man was a team-worst minus-9 in his 19 minutes of action. That's fairly standard for Miami, which performs roughly five points better per 100 possessions when Whiteside rides the pine.

And that's not because last year's breakout star is a limited offensive player with a reputation as one of the worst offensive ball-stoppers in NBA history. No, Miami makes almost all of its improvements without Whiteside on the defensive end, which is puzzling if you considered him the team's defensive anchor.

In 734 Whiteside-free minutes this season, the Heat allowed just 94.5 points per 100 possessions - a mark that would trail only the top-ranked Spurs. In 1,009 minutes with Whiteside on the court, the Heat defended like the 16th-ranked Grizzlies (102.1 defensive rating), their defensive rebound rate also dipping despite Whiteside's prolific individual performance.

Keep that - and his career 51 percent free-throw accuracy - in mind the next time you wonder why Whiteside logs as many fourth-quarter minutes as Jeff Withey, or why, of the top 32 PER players this season, only rookie Karl-Anthony Towns and defensively inept reserve Enes Kanter log less time.

*Minimum 3 FGA at rim defender per game and 10 games played

Despite averaging less than 29 minutes, however, Whiteside faces the second-most opposing attempts at the rim (10.2) per game, which could be an indication of poor perimeter defense in front of him, a willingness for opposing teams to challenge him, and/or his own block-chasing.

All this presents an interesting decision for the Heat this summer, when Whiteside becomes an unrestricted free agent. With the salary cap set to explode over the next two years, a plethora of cap space spread around the league, and a number of teams who won't sniff the likes of Kevin Durant and other true superstars, someone can probably talk themselves into a max offer for a 26-year-old block machine and walking double-double.

The Heat were wise to pluck Whiteside out of obscurity last year, and the gifted big man has more than repaid the team's minuscule gamble on him. But since they're sharp enough to avoid buying into the Whiteside hype being driven by base statistics, Pat Riley, Spoelstra, and co. are probably also wise enough to know they shouldn't be the ones to make him that offer.