NBA free agency rumors: Hassan Whiteside left wiggle room for Kevin Durant

While he said that he was all about the money, it seems that free agent Hassan Whiteside didn’t take the max with the Miami Heat to help land Kevin Durant.

According to the Miami Herald’s Ethan J. Skolnick, Hassan Whiteside may not have signed the four-year, $98 million maximum contract as initially expected. It seems that the free agent center chose to take less money to re-up with the Miami Heat in the team’s pursuit of star free agent small forward Kevin Durant.

This is an interesting twist in the Durant free agency sweepstakes, as many thought that Whiteside was going to agree to a max contract at 12:01 AM Friday morning and possibly leave South Beach. Whiteside did meet with the Dallas Mavericks and had interest with the Los Angeles Lakers and the Portland Trail Blazers before ultimately deciding to go back to Miami.

At first, it looked like Whiteside just used the Mavericks as leverage to get more money to stay with the Heat, but this new deal of his might be an even better for Whiteside and the Heat. Miami can now push to sign Durant even with Whiteside on the books for the next few years.

While Oklahoma City is the overwhelming favorite to keep Durant in 2016 NBA free agency, Miami along with the Golden State Warriors were the two teams one anonymous Roc Nation representative of Durant’s said that his client could be swayed to join this summer over the Thunder.

With Miami team president Pat Riley almost certainly going to do his patented bargaining push by dropping all of his championship rings on the table in front of a free agency target, it’ll be interesting if Miami can pull of this blockbuster free agency signing of Durant. Not having to max out Whiteside is a huge plus in that regard.

For more NBA free agency news, please check out our NBA free agency category page.