Hassan Whiteside Fired Back At Inside The NBA’s ‘Stealing Money’ Criticism

The new NBA season has been in full swing for a couple of weeks now, and that means the Inside the NBA crew is starting to round into form. They had a healthy double-header on Thursday night featuring Celtics-Hornets and Blazers-Clippers, and by the time the second game rolled around, the opinions starting coming in hot and heavy.

At halftime of the nitecap game, both Shaq and Charles didn’t like the effort they were seeing from Hassan Whiteside for the Blazers, as he scored just two points in the first half and had largely not made his impact felt as his team tried to get a tough win against L.A. on the road.

Shaq took a few minutes to go straight at Whiteside for his effort, reminding him that he’s in a contract year and berating him for letting Ivica Zubac “hit him with a George Mikan move.”

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Even though Shaq took some potshots in his breakdown, it was nothing compared to Chuck, who flat-out accused Whiteside of stealing money from his team with his poor effort.

Whiteside apparently heard that criticism because he responded, both on and off the court. Though the Blazers eventually fell 107-101 to the Clippers, Whiteside stepped it up and finished with 17 points, 19 rebounds, and a pair of blocks for the night.

After the game, he took his own shot at Shaq, saying that he doesn’t expect any positive comments from him after losing a rap battle to Damian Lillard this offseason.

Though Whiteside finished with big numbers after a slow start Thursday night, he gave up a lot defensively for the Blazers down the stretch on the pick-and-roll, so that along with the outcome of that game, still leave plenty of room for his development as he continues to adjust to his new team and tries to earn a permanent spot this season.