Most of the players from 2017 were either, drafted, signed, or retained by Whaley. That team ended the drought. You can assign credit however you would like but it would clearly be Whaley that would get the most credit out of that era for ending the drought.
I am actually hard pressed to remember what Bean had actually done to contribute to the 2017 season at that point. Remember Whaley left and he came in after the draft. I know we traded Watkins and Darby for some draft picks Gaines I believe and the got robbed by Carolina with the Kelvin Benjamin trade but at that point the plan was to build for the future not win now.
Don’t get me wrong Bean is a far better GM than Whaley. However there were some positives he had including his contributions to ending a 17 year period of futility.