Hassan Whiteside Agrees to Contract with Jazz in 2021 NBA Free Agency

The Utah Jazz agreed to a deal with veteran center Hassan Whiteside on Tuesday, per ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski.

Whiteside didn't make a huge impact for the Sacramento Kings last season, appearing in 36 games and averaging 8.1 points, 6.0 rebounds and 1.3 blocks in 15.2 minutes per contest. He largely served as Richaun Holmes' backup, a role he'll reprise in the 2021-22 campaign but with Rudy Gobert.

Despite having a star in De'Aaron Fox, an exciting young prospect in Tyrese Haliburton, the talented but often underwhelming Marvin Bagley III and solid veterans in Harrison Barnes and Holmes, the Kings underachieved yet again last season, limping to a 31-41 record that wasn't even good enough to qualify them for the play-in tournament.

That left them in the lottery once again, extending a playoff drought that has lasted for 15 years.

Whiteside wasn't the main culprit in that disappointment, but the Kings may have felt they could get his minutes and production elsewhere at the backup center position and didn't bring him back.

The days of him being a double-double machine are likely over, but Utah is banking on him being a solid piece off the bench with Gobert already entrenched as the primary big man.