Miami Heat center Hassan Whiteside has exercised the $27.1 million player option on his contract for 2019-20, a league source told ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski.
It'll be the final year of the four-year, $98 million contract Whiteside signed with Miami, and the salary he'll command next season will keep him as the highest-paid player on the Heat roster.
Whiteside averaged 12.3 points and a team-best 11.3 rebounds per game last season, appearing in 72 games and starting 53 of those. He also averaged only 23 minutes per game, and at times expressed his displeasure about not having a larger role.
"He's going to come to training camp like everybody else this year and earn it," Heat president Pat Riley said Friday, several hours before the option was exercised.
For his career, Whiteside has averaged 13.4 points and 11.4 rebounds over parts of seven seasons with Miami and Sacramento. He led the NBA in blocks per game in the 2015-16 season, then led the league in rebounds per game the following season.
He's third on Miami's all-time blocks list behind Alonzo Mourning and Dwyane Wade, and fifth on the team's all-time rebound list behind Udonis Haslem, Mourning, Rony Seikaly and Wade.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.