You know we've hit the dog days of the NBA's offseason when former players are being wheeled out at an alarming rate to appear on podcasts and talk about their experiences in the league. Not that this can't be enjoyable to listen to, but can we just get back to the games already?
One such player who enjoyed over a decade in the league - as well as overseas - and certainly has a few tales to tell is big man Hassan Whiteside. His best days and most money made undoubtedly coming while he was a member of the Miami Heat.
But Whiteside has now revealed he offered to take less money to get Kevin Durant to South Beach.
The period of time Whiteside is referring to while on "The OGs" podcast is after LeBron James left the Heat to go back to the Cleveland Cavaliers, so this was also prior to Durant deciding to form a super team with the Golden State Warriors. Not that Durant is likely to care, he won a pair of championships to add to his league MVP award while in The Bay Area. He's far from finished in Phoenix as well.
Whiteside did make an interesting case as to why Durant should have done it, saying "I said if K.D. come, I'll take less money. It was more so about winning. We would have had Goran (Dragic, recently retired former Sun), (Dwyane) Wade, Kevin Durant, Chris Bosh and then me at the five. I'm here for it."
In fairness to Whiteside, Durant did take a meeting with the Heat before opting to join the Warriors, so it is not like this is some sort of baseless link to think about what might have been. At this point Heat lifer Udonis Haslem was forced to pipe up, and give the greatest reasoning of all as to why the move never came together.
"I was hoping for that to work out the way it did, but it was also the heels of Bron just leaving, and I just didn't know if K.D. wanted to deal with that. Because everything he did was going to be compared to what Bron did in Miami. They wasn't going to let him live... that would have been a frustrating situation for K.D."
It is easy to forget, but there was a time not so long ago when everything Durant did was compared to James. The emergence of Stephen Curry and new debates raging online put a stop to this talk, but it was constant for a while there. Never more so than after James beat Durant to win his first chip back in 2012, with this decision not so far removed from then. Haslem then left the door ajar, saying;
"I was happy he took the meeting, I was hoping it was going to work out but in the long run, I really didn't think that was going to be the time he came to Miami. He was going to be ridiculed and compared to Bron about everything."
Going to be the time Durant came to Miami? Probably just a turn of phrase - and Durant is now 35-years-old - and yet there were rumors as recently as this year about the superstar heading down to South Beach. Whiteside though, well he did his part in trying to make it happen back in 2016.