Cam Whitmore traded from the Houston Rockets to the Washington Wizards!

Cam Whitmore traded from the Houston Rockets to the Washington Wizards!

What is up, Wizards fans? Welcome in to another Believe in Wizards podcast. I’m Matt Madno. I just got into the Bay Area here, landed at SFO about an hour ago, and I’m headed to a work pickle ball outing here in a little bit, but figured I’d just drop in uh before I had to head over there and just give you a little bit of my thoughts on this uh Cam Whitmore trade to the Wizards. First of all, I just love it. Like, let’s just get right into it. Like, I I think this is the right kind of move. This isn’t like confirmation bias because I had Whitmore still, you know, high despite any of the rumblings about him pre-draft. This is simply the type of like low reclamation project the Wizards should be trying to just take as many swings at as they can. Like this is the reason you accumulate all these second round picks. It’s to move up in drafts or go get guys that are, you know, essentially buy low guys that that are not as valued by their original team, which is basically the case with Whitmore. uh he got drafted in the Koolabali draft. There was a lot of talk about you know which of them would ultimately come off the board first and then for a series of reasons Whitmore you know actually dropped on draft night. I think most people had him consensus top 10 some people top five you know maybe consensus top seven is probably fair realistically that’s that’s exactly where I had him uh pre-draft is that 678 range. I’d have to look at my final board there, but he was like a spot after Koolibali and it could have made the case, you know, for uh him being higher potentially too, just based on, you know, some of the things he’s accomplished in his career already. Uh this was a guy that was the uh under 18 FIA team for Team USA, MVP on a gold medal team. Was incredible in that tournament. Uh was just a defensive nightmare. Like was a strip sack for people. like he was literally just picking pockets and going coast to coast for these like monster, you know, hammer dunks. And I think that’s become like the signature of him. Just the dude dunks harder than just about any wing. I I think might be in the NBA right now. He’s a really good athlete. Had a 40 and a half inch vertical jump during the combine. Tested really well on the agility drills. But this is a dude that just like he dunks angry. And I think this is like a thing the Wizards need, especially with this this group they’ve got. I I really like the people they’ve assembled, but he’s got a little mfer energy to him and I I think that’s a good thing and I talked that about that a lot on the show of just needing a few more dudes with that kind of mindset and and hopefully that’s something that rubs off on people or, you know, drives them competition wise. I’ve made some jokes, everybody’s made some jokes, I think, at this point about the amount of, you know, small forwards essentially or wings or whatever term you want to give them, guys 6’5 through 68 uh that this front office has accumulated. But it really is the most valuable position in the league in my opinion. So, might as well stockpile them and just let them all fight it out to the death here and see who rises to the top. And enough of them have, you know, shown some flashes already, have some upside, some pedigree so that if they don’t work out here ultimately, you might be able to sell them and and get something for them in return if they ultimately, you know, don’t fit into your long-term picture or you can only have so many of those guys. It’s it’s just such a tough position to get good players at because the really good ones get locked down for a lot of money. You look at guys and similar metrics like of centers versus wings and the wings will make twice as much money just because you need more of them. You look at these playoff series where teams will have four wings out on the court at any given time and only one big. Like so it’s just a you need more of them. They’re harder to get. the good ones don’t become available and the ones that do become available usually, you know, there’s some hole in their game there. It’s a Duncan Robinson who’s gonna make, you know, $20 million a year or whatever the case may be this year and just gets hunted on defense. Ultimately, you know, Whitmore, I don’t think has been all that great in the limited minutes he’s gotten in Houston. But I think a lot of times it’s a mentality thing where guys are frustrated with their role. They don’t lock in as consistently as you want. So, just going somewhere, getting a chance to prove yourself over again and get a fresh start and feel like you’re not behind the eightball with the coaching staff and things like that. I think we’ll see a reinvigorated defender and that’ll just lead to some easy offense for him as well. Uh, so I’m not worried about the defense long term. So, this is a guy that can be a two-way wing and and that’s always intriguing to me. got drafted after one year at Villanovavva uh where he averaged 12 and a half points, 5.3 rebounds, less than assist, uh less than an assist per game at 7, which is a staple for him unfortunately here. The less than one assist thing and and that is an area he has to improve. You can’t just be the only like play finisher like you’re you’re going to have to move the ball. you know, if you draw attention and he is a good scorer and he’s successful in that role here, he’s going to have to be able to create some looks for other guys and and not get tunnel vision. Average 1.6 turnovers per game at Villanova. Not ideal. Shot below 35% from three. He was uh let’s say 34 and a half% 70% from the free throw line. Not the best indicators. It it is a little bit of a stiff shot, but you know, I think he’ll be respectable uh from three. and he’s been okayish in two years in the NBA so far. His rookie year was better I I think on paper than his sophomore year here averaged 12.3 points about four rebounds still.7 assists. That’s that’s the number apparently uh and 1.6 turnovers. Oh no, sorry that was the college year. He was one turnover last year or his first year uh for Houston 6 deals four blocks. So so not great from a stocks perspective for a guy that’s that athletic. uh about 19 minutes per game give or take. And then in year two, 9.4 points, three rebounds, one assist,6 steals,.3 blocks, one turnover in 16 minutes per game. So his first year, he played 47 games, so didn’t get into a ton of them. Uh only started two games, and then this past year, obviously, the team was better. Uh he played in 51 games, started three of them. So not a, you know, gang buster start here for for our guy. Uh but uh some positives there. The shooting was a question mark. He shot 36% as a rookie and 35 and a half% last year. So, so respectableish. Like you have to guard him out there on decent volume. That first year he shot 4.7 attempts. Last year he shot 3.6. So it’s enough of a sample size to show he’s going to be at least like a meh shooter. And and hopefully, you know, the Wizards seem very confident in their ability to teach shooting and and this is another guy that that needs some work here. So, you know, hopefully um they’re able to help him make some strides along with all the other guys. You know, Koulali needs some help shooting. Uh Keshan George you didn’t expect to need a lot of help as a shooter coming in, but he didn’t shoot particularly well last year. Bob Carrington was not a great shooter in college and and even before that. And last year was just okay. Uh Alex Sar had one of the least efficient shooting seasons anyone that big has ever had. And so, you know, like they’re there just around the board here. uh we’re we’re going to need some help in that department. If it were me, I would invest in the literal best two shooting coaches I could find and just sort of spread the wealth here a little bit, but again, they they feel confident in what their staff can do. So, uh we’ll rock with it and and hopefully it just works out for him here in the long run. But, you know, if he’s just solid this year, I think that’s okay. And he can be another switchable guy. He’s a big, strong, physical dude. You might even be able to get away with playing him some small ball four minutes potentially. So, if he’s a guy that can guard one through four, you know, given the particular matchups out there, I think that’s huge. And the best part of all of this is the price they, you know, they gave up to get him here. Two second round picks, which is incredible. A 2026 second round pick, a 2029 second round pick, and apparently the rights to Mojave King from the Kings were thrown in there as well, which, you know, I don’t know that he’ll ever come to the NBA. Maybe, you know, like we’ll see what that looks like for them. Just sort of a throwin, I think, maybe to make some money work or something like that. uh or help out another deal. Who knows? Uh and then Shams reported that the the Rockets had better offers on the table, but wanted to send Whitmore somewhere uh where he could thrive. And I think that’s cool. Some guys just they do better around home and family. Some guys don’t want to be here. Like the Kevin Durant of the world need to get far away from from the noise. And some of these guys are closer tight-knit families and things like that. uh you know I think Whitmore’s dad works as like a DoD contractor here locally in in the like um you know Colia Marylandish area if you want to take any guesses of of where he might be supporting there and uh obviously from Odenton there and went to Spalding and and things like that. So this is a dude I think that might just thrive being you know right back around the beltway here a little bit. I’m sure he and Bub Carrington have some familiarity with each other growing up or have crossed paths. So, so that’s cool. And again, I think the mindset will be awesome for them. At the very least, he’s going to push dudes in practice. And I think that’s something you want. And you know, last year it just the competition aspect of it wasn’t really there. The rookies kind of got grandfathered in minutes from the start and eventually they moved on from the vets and and there was just a clear path to to all those minutes for the young guys, which is good in some respects. you want them to play because that’s how they’ll get better is being on the court, but they also have to fight and earn those minutes. And now there’s a lot more mouths to feed with Trey Johnson coming in. You got Will Riley there as well and Jir Watkins is not going to like take no for an answer from anybody or take anybody’s from day one, too. So, I think any of those guys uh just coming in and pushing people, I think is going to be, you know, really interesting to see what that looks like and how the minutes shake out. And I think the vets are less minutes competition and more mentoring. Like they’re going to get their minutes, but it’s the really the young guys are going to be competing with each other uh to get out there on the court. And I think that’s that’s, you know, reigns to be seen here who who uh are the guys that that earn those minutes. I think the expectation is that they’ll probably, you know, give first dibs to Cool Bali and people like that and and guys that are a little more entrenched or people they picked, but they went out and got these other dudes, so they clearly valued them uh pretty highly and and I would imagine that Whitmore was probably pretty high on their board on draft night if they circled back around to getting him and and maybe just the concerns, you know, um caused them to pass on him with that pick that ended up being Cool Bali, but or the price was too steep to go back up and get him the second time. So, that’s that’s going to be really interesting to find out where, you know, where they valued him. I’d like to see more from from Dawkins company about just how long-standing, you know, the sort of love affair with Cam Whitmore from their end has been, but why did he drop on draft night? It’s still a little bit of an unanswered question. There was a lot of speculation that it was medical evaluation related. Uh there’s some been some stuff about his knee cartilage, whether he has a degenerative knee thing was even thrown out there. He did break his tibia twice in like a six-month period uh when he was a freshman in high school, which is obviously like not great for for any guy that’s that dynamic a mover to have multiple uh lower body injuries, but you know, a broken leg is usually kind of a fluky thing. So, something hopefully he fully recovered from. There was some stuff with his thumb and his hand at at Villanova. Hopefully nothing lingering there. But there was also just reports of a lot of like the word I remember seeing a bunch of the time was lukewarm and I’m doing air quotes for anybody listening to the you know the audio version of this podcast uh lukewarm workouts and interviews and saw with Ace Bailey you know like guys sometimes play games a little bit in the workout or the interview or or don’t feel like you know putting on the dog and pony show for people that they just think their game will speak for itself and that’s not really how the game is played. Unfortunately, they want to hear certain things and certain answers and and that combined with the medical stuff and you know a few few glaring holes in college like he was pretty good but same kind of thing that that you look out with even Dylan Harper and Ace Bailey like I think there was more talent on that Villanova team that that uh Cam played with and and still didn’t get them the kind of success Villanovva was used to. obviously was a newer coach under Kyle Neptune there. But like if you’re that talented and you’re a top five recruit, I think there’s some expectation that your team will have a reasonable amount of success and and they underachieved. So, uh you know that that all kind of probably congealed together into this weird uh like okay what happens and then it’s a copycat league, right? So if if a couple teams pass on him pretty obviously once you get to 10 12 other teams get nervous. There’s not a lot of time between picks and dunes can snowball sometimes as people are like calling everyone they know, hey, what’s going on? If you go back and listen to the Sam Bassini uh uh Bryce Simon game theory podcast on draft night, they talked a lot about what was happening with Illinois freshman Kaspar Yakonis and is it medical? Is there a thing here? Is there bad interviews? Was there bad workouts? And you know, apparently he rolled an ankle in his first workout and then had a couple meh ones after. So, like it can be all this little stuff, but it’s okay. It worked out for the Wizards. They eventually circled back around to a guy, you know, they clearly had some interest in. And again, the price to do it was almost nothing. So, I was a little skeptical about like the trading back from 18 to 21, but if Riley was their guy and it helped him get two second round picks and that was the price to go out and get Cam Whitmore, like this is awesome. And there was a lot of talk earlier in the week about Jonathan Kaminga. That was a guy I was crazy high on because I had seen him uh you know in prep and and he was just a just this freakish athlete and it’s never really fully come together. And there are some similarities between the two guys. They’re not great shooters, big solid dynamic athletes, uh not as good a defenders as you would hope given their physical and athletic profile, but they don’t really pass or create for others. And it’s just hard to get too many of those guys on the court unless you’re really elite. So, I love Cam as a flyer and a project. He’s still got some things to work on, but I think the upside of a guy that you just got for two second round picks is is crazy. And given the price for what it would take him to get Kaminga, I think this is a much better play at this point. He’s got more room to grow. His birthday is in two days. So, July 8th, if you’re listening to this on July 8th, go wish our guy a happy birthday. He’s literally not old enough to drink until uh Tuesday of this week. So, that should tell you something here. like the third year is usually big for players development, but he’s still yeah, not even 21 years old. So, I I think this is really like just a great thing from Will Dawkins and company and and I’ve been a little like down on some of the trades, not down, but just like meh on them. They’ve been fine. I wanted them to fleece somebody and it sounds like Houston did us a, you know, a little bit of a favor here or a solid or did Cam a solid. So, you can’t really call it a fleecing if they were uh, you know, you know, complicit in the crime here, I guess. But it just this seems like the kind of move I’d love to see them, you know, work out a few more times here. So, uh, this is awesome. Maybe they can pull off a similar move for a a young big man with some upside. Uh, that’d be incredible to see here as well. I think you’ve now got some guard prospects with Bob and Trey. And whatever you make of AJ Johnson, still worth kind of the effort here. I would imagine this forces even more of his minutes to come at the Capitol City Go level, but but that’s okay. probably see more Will Riley and Jir Watkins starting out the year there and things like that too just to to give some of these other guys a chance and let’s say even Cam Whitmore isn’t a part of your long-term future you have the minutes to give a guy like this to feature him and let him look good and then maybe you flip him for a late first round pick later and you’ve still come out ahead ultimately even if he doesn’t become a you know a large part of your long-term future here which again I hope he is but either way there’s just like this is a pretty good upside, no risk move, and that’s just a no-brainer. Uh, if you’re a front office and as a fan, you know, you just I can’t imagine anybody could have like a real bone to pick with them for doing this. So, it’s going to be really exciting here. I’m going to have a little more content on the channel uh later in the week here just talking about some of the guys that have been uh added uh to exhibit 10 contracts and things like that that you’ll ultimately probably see on the summer league team. Uh, ain’t no half. Stefan mentioned it in the chat here. He said, “I doubt Cam will play summer league as a former MVP.” Yeah, that’s a question, right? Like a lot of teams will play some of their better guys a few minutes the first game, trail them off in game two, and then that’s really it. Uh, you know, for for the whole weekend there, but it’s good to have them there with some of the younger, you know, younger guys. They can bond with their teammates. It’s an opportunity for their younger dudes to take on a leadership role. So, like maybe you see a few of these guys just go um get a little cardio the first day, gel with the other newer guys, and then slowly taper off so they can evaluate these dudes that, you know, maybe get a training camp invite or use their exhibit 10s to parlay them into uh the G- League team. Again, as a reminder, that exhibit 10 contract is basically a chance to try out and maybe make the team in camp and convert to a standard contract, which given where the Wizards are at with roster spots, I think is a very uphill battle, but it is a chance for them to be converted to a G-League contract, and they get a $75,000 bonus. Maybe that’s gone up since last year, but last year it was a 75k bonus if they go from an E10 to the go- go. So again, uh these these dudes that they’re adding on the side here, which we’ll talk about more in the channel later in the week, uh we’re going to have a new member of the Department of Hoops here, Ben Wolf, come on and bring in Nick Thomas, a draft analyst, and we’ll talk about some of those guys. So look for that episode a little bit here later in the week. And then I’ll I’ll check in with you guys hopefully, you know, before the start of summer league about the final roster, the schedule, all those kinds of things and and give you more detail. So, if you have any specific questions about Cam or any of these other dudes, Jonathan Pierre, Kadari Richmond, uh Keshan Gilbert, uh you know, just just let us know and uh we’ll do hopefully a deeper dive on any of them. There are a few other videos up here on the channel that you can go check out on each of the four dudes that they’ve added. Zeke Mayo being the fourth one. Uh and we’ll try to do something similar on Kim Whitmore here, too. So, guys, this is great. This is a good day to be a Wizards fan. Uh you know, I’m actually maybe as excited about this as I I was the draft. And and if you guys listen to our draft show, I was huge on Trey Johnson. So, this says a lot. Uh and again, even if it doesn’t work out, I just still love this type of thinking and I hope they keep taking swings like this. So, way to go, Will Dawkins. Uh you know, just keep it up, brother. We appreciate you. All right, this is Believing Wizards. You guys know the drill. Please hit that like button for us. We really appreciate when you guys do that. It makes this show more discoverable to other Wizards fans out there. helps us grow our little community, all 406 Wizards fans that still exist. You know, maybe we can double that after an exciting season uh with some of these rookies and and guys like Cam Whitmore out there. All right, we’ll check y’all next time.

Cam Whitmore, 6-6 wing from Odenton, MD, has been traded from the Houston Rockets to the Washington Wizards in exchange for two second round picks. Matt Modderno breaks down the trade!

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