I've heard Miami's overall oncourt/offcourt defensive numbers weren't good with Whiteside. Maybe some of that really is stat chasing. But when his stats aren't really that different from normal, perhaps it's on his teammates. I wonder if some of it is just how dispiriting it can be if you are a young person trying to figure shit out and the well-paid vet who is supposed to "lead" you is a cranky, weird center whose style of play doesn't really fit with the coach. Maybe the young guys just didn't try as hard when he was on the court because they just didn't have any belief in him as a leader or teammate or anchor.
I wouldn't put a Dennis Rodman or Ron Artest on a young team, and for that matter even Nurkic is probably a bad fit for a young team that doesn't have strong leadership. Maybe Kanter too. Whiteside's teams had the most success when other vets (Wade) were around to rally the troops.
Eh...some guys do mature. Vince Carter was insanely immature and changed, and Artest didn't. I'm not really sure Nurkic has matured a bit--I don't see behind the scenes. I know his
behavior since having Dame in his ear has been exemplary. I kind of suspect, though, that if you made him move to Miami and replace Whiteside, he'd probably piss everyone off.

Just watch him get under the skins of opponents. It's not hard to imagine him doing that with coaches and teammates if the structure wasn't there.
Portland has relatively few unique assets. The pockets aren't as deep as they once were. They haven't traditionally been a free agent player. Poor draft position. Only one superstar. What Portland does have is probably the best leader in the league in Lillard. I think it's a legit strategy to target other teams' talented basket cases so that we can leverage that leadership as much as possible.
It's kind of interesting to think what could have been if we had a mature Lillard in 2000 instead of Stoudamire. With Dame, Pip, Sabas and Smitty the Jail Blazer term never gets coined.
I think I'm going to spend then next 45 minutes imagining the 2000 WCF with Dame running point in the fourth quarter.