Hassan Whiteside, Draymond Green broil subtweet beef over virtues of small-ball

The last four NBA championships have been claimed by teams — the Big Three-era Miami Heat, San Antonio Spurs and Golden State Warriors — that were not only capable of going small when the situation called for it, but that relished the opportunity to downshift and force opponents into uncomfortable, chaos-creating matchups on both ends of the floor. With rule changes and stylistic shifts resulting in something of a brave new NBA world, the league's landscape appears to have shifted; these days, perimeter shooting and two-way versatility seem to matter more than sheer size and strength.

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All that talk about small-ball seems to have rankled Heat center Hassan Whiteside, a more traditional sort of big man. Whiteside did the bulk of his damage during his breakout 2014-15 campaign within 5 feet of the basket. He's much more of a finisher than a playmaker, logging just six assists in 1,142 minutes last season while coughing the ball up on a shade over 11 percent of the offensive possessions he used. And while graded out well in limited work as the play-ending defender on dive men in the pick-and-roll, per Synergy Sports Technology's game-charting data, the 7-foot, 265-pound center is the sort of behemoth that often tends to be a liability when forced to defend stretch fours and fives in space away from the rim.

Yes, small guys who can guard multiple positions and space the floor out to the 3-point line are the new black. But as Whiteside tweeted Tuesday night, new trends don't necessarily terminate time-honored truths:

After a couple of hours, Whiteside's dig received a response from one famously vocal fella who just got done proving his worth as the top power forward and part-time center on the reigning world champs, and who's more than willing to engage in a little trash talk now and again (and again and again and again):

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A bit later on, in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, Whiteside fired back, claiming makeshift pivots like the 6-foot-7 (if that) Green can't handle his back-to-the-basket game without looking for help from either teammates or the zebras:

Green, who'd passed the hours before Whiteside's comeback by looking askance at Whiteside's numbers and categorizing New Orleans Pelicans monster Anthony Davis as "a player" rather than a "big man," didn't hop to the keyboard to respond to Hassan's early-morning missive. During breakfast time on the West Coast, though, the runner-up for Defensive Player of the Year and Most Improved Player honors got his "Nature Boy" (or, perhaps more accurately, his "Million Dollar Man") on and reminded us all why he's the best heel in the basketball business today:

Cold-blooded, Draymond, faulting a man for wanting to get his rating up (and succeeding). We must stop the second-rounder-on-second-rounder violence! Won't someone please think of the children?

Green has since deleted his tweets, but that doesn't mean he — and others — can't still have a few laughs about it all:

... or that we can't join them, as we eagerly await the first meeting between the Heat and Warriors on Jan. 11 at Oracle Arena in the Bay.

Coming off a season in which he went from unemployed to untouchable in the span of three months, but also gave grist for the mill for those who have questioned his maturity dating back to his days at Marshall, Whiteside enters the 2015-16 season knowing he needs to prove that he wasn't just a 48-game flash in the pan. If he can stay steady as a rim-protecting, board-crashing, dunk-everything-in-sight monster manning the middle for Erik Spoelstra's club, he could find himself inking a contract that tops even Green's $82 million when he hits the market as an unrestricted free agent next summer.

If he struggles when under the pressure of serving as the centerpiece of a star-studded starting five that Spoelstra and Pat Riley hope will elevate the Heat back to the ranks of the East's elite, though ... well, Whiteside's run as an NBA darling could be even shorter than the small-ball types that seem to have gotten so deep under his skin. Whether or not bigs really are dinosaurs overall in today's NBA, Whiteside himself may be playing this season to avoid extinction.

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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don't Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at devine@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!

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