Cam Whitmore to the Washington Wizards

[Threezus]

I still don't see why the Hawks couldn't just take him in the Capela trade and if need be throw in some 2nds or something. Only thing i can think of is Quinn just doesn't like his fit for his scheme maybe.

[Courant]

Anytime a team trades a player so early in his career - especially when he seemingly has solid potential - there’s always more that meets the eye (such as he requested trade, bad locker room presence, not buying into team philosophy etc)

You mean like when the Clippers traded Shai? Kings trading Hali?

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was traded for a six-time All-NBA player who was third in league MVP voting that season.

Tyrese Haliburton was traded for a center who has led the NBA in rebounding for three consecutive seasons while averaging 20 points and 7 assists per game.

Cam Whitmore was traded for two second-round picks.

Suddenly, this doesn't sound like the flex you envisioned.

[WiggOuts]

Seems odd for HOU to trade him for what seems like low value, probably expecting a 2nd(31-40) which is ok i guess but he was a 1st round pick 2 years ago. It especially seems odd when they just traded Green, youd expect them to have more opportunity for him to play more now. I get them impression they're going for a more mature locker room getting rid of those guys

[Frichuela]

Washington still showing no signs of knowing how to build a team. lol.

Wrong. The Wizards have now one of the best front offices of the association. After 40 years of no direction, they are finally building the right way. Watch.

The trade for Whitmore for 2 seconds is another example of the smart nature of Dawkins &
Co. Very limited downside. Nothing to lose and worth a swing.

[Los_29]

Washington still showing no signs of knowing how to build a team. lol.

Wrong. The Wizards have now one of the best front offices of the association. After 40 years of no direction, they are finally building the right way. Watch.

The trade for Whitmore for 2 seconds is another example of the smart nature of Dawkins &
Co. Very limited downside. Nothing to lose and worth a swing.

Whitmore is not a good player and has a skillset that is not conducive to winning basketball. How many elite teams have players like Whitmore on their squad?

[Frichuela]

Washington still showing no signs of knowing how to build a team. lol.

Wrong. The Wizards have now one of the best front offices of the association. After 40 years of no direction, they are finally building the right way. Watch.

The trade for Whitmore for 2 seconds is another example of the smart nature of Dawkins &
Co. Very limited downside. Nothing to lose and worth a swing.

Whitmore is not a good player and has a skillset that is not conducive to winning basketball. How many elite teams have players like Whitmore on their squad?

Time will tell. As I said, worth a swing for a very low cost. The Wizards front office has accumulated a ton of second round pick capital for these type of bets.

[hauntedcomputer]

Let him gun it for a year while you're tanking and then trade him for three Seconds.

[ocelot17]

Ime played Aaron holiday, JaeSean Tate, and Nate Williams over this guy.

Watch on YouTube

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[kg01]

Ime played Aaron holiday, JaeSean Tate, and Nate Williams over this guy.

Watch on YouTube

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I mean, they almost had the best record in the league so ...

[MoreyWins]

Ime played Aaron holiday, JaeSean Tate, and Nate Williams over this guy.

Watch on YouTube

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Holiday and Tate are actually decent players to play when you're trying to win games. I don't think Nate Williams got any real minutes over Cam. Cam is a fun player, but he clearly has something off with his game that prevents him from getting playtime. All Ime asked from him was to be more team-oriented and to play defense. That's not a tough ask, and Cam was unable to fill that request.

[davidv2001]

Ime played Aaron holiday, JaeSean Tate, and Nate Williams over this guy.

Watch on YouTube

;si=-Iw07SX1wi8q1_d4

Coaches typically don’t play guys that jack up shots every time the ball touches their hand and don’t regularly give good defensive effort. Ime Udoka is far from the only coach that would have had issues with Whitmore’s play style.

Cam Whitmore took 10 shots in 19 minutes per game as a rookie. He was sent down to the G-League at the beginning of his second season because he didn’t show improvement in sharing the ball and trying on defense. When he came back, he proceeded to average 8 shots in 16 minutes per game.

[Harry Palmer]

Heard about this, thought : Yeah, but why would you do this?

Then read that the Rockets had worked closely with Cam and his people to get best situation for him, not best return and that other GMs were miffed at offering more but being passed over, and thought: Yeah, but why would you do this?

First Stone move I totally hate. Tons of talent, worth working it out with him. But don’t sell low, and definitely don’t intentionally sell lower for Cam’s sake. If we like him that much, **** keep him. If not, get the best return. I get that paying it forward with players can be rewarded in terms of how players around the league see your franchise, but Cam’s got rare 3-level scoring potential, and yeah, he needs to work on making plays for others and defending, we got time. KD’ll be gone in 3-4 seasons, and aside from Reed we have traded the two guys who could be the focal point of the offense amongst our young guys. Would have been nice to keep at least one of them. That’s paying it forward with talent.

[The Consiglieri]

Casuals really don't understand how not good this guy is. His attitude alone is problematic.

We have 50,000 future seconds the next 7 years, throwing 2 of them at Whitmore, a guy top 8 in the last Espn and ringer mocks from 2 years ago, and top 3 overall on the athletic big board is more than worth it. He sucks, he's gone, he hits, we've got him.

We literally have, I believe, 14 or 15 more seconds to use between 2026-2032.

So it's not about how good or bad he is right now, or yesterday, it's about the cost of acquisition, and the chances of us actually hitting on something of value from said cost. He cost us virtually nothing, we've been throwing these darts for two years now at AJ Johnson, at Colby Jones, then flipped Colby Jones for a 2nd and Dillon Jones, now 2 seconds out for Whitmore.

We are drafting guys, and acquiring other teams draftees that they can't afford to save a roster spot for in the hopes of gaining added value. So far, no big hits, otoh, at bare minimum, the bucks are regretting their trade for Kuzma, and we have a future pick swap, and AJ Johnson (23rd overall in '24) in that deal and Middleton, we acquired Colby '23 (34th in '23), and then as mentioned earlier, flipped him for an extra second and Dillon jones (26th pick in '24), now 2 seconds out the door for Whitmore (20th in '23, ranked inside top 10 on every mock I saw).....

For me anyway, these all appear to be dart throws for added value to augment our chances on hitting something, anything, at little cost, as we continue to tank, and get hosed in the lottery. The hope I imagine is we land a top 4 pick in '26, a lottery pick in '27, and content in '28, and that all these dart throws, and draftees like Coulibaly, Bub, George, Sarr, Tre Johnson, Riley can form the surrounding talent around them, and who knows, maybe one or two of them turn into a second star, and we've added a pile of pick swaps and future picks to keep swinging which will help if we draft busts, and will help augment the roster with cheap value options if we do find our stars in the next year or three.

It's elaborate and yet simple: this is an unblindfolded dart throw from 10 feet away, hoping to land something of more value than two picks likely to be between 35-45 in '26 and '29. Well worth it when you consider his evaluations, and the fact that we have another 15 or so picks between '26 and '32 to work with in that zone or the second round in general.

[The Consiglieri]

I like what Was is building here. Wonder if they could sneak near the play in.

Pray to the basketball heavens no, we don't own our '26 1st if we are outside the top 8, simply cannot afford to be competent in '25-'26, need to pull Peterson, Ament, Boozer, or Dybantsa out of that draw, Mikel Brown being the likely outcome since we always get flushed down the toilet in quality NBA draft class lotteries.

[The Consiglieri]

Washington still showing no signs of knowing how to build a team. lol.

Wrong. The Wizards have now one of the best front offices of the association. After 40 years of no direction, they are finally building the right way. Watch.

The trade for Whitmore for 2 seconds is another example of the smart nature of Dawkins &
Co. Very limited downside. Nothing to lose and worth a swing.

Whitmore is not a good player and has a skillset that is not conducive to winning basketball. How many elite teams have players like Whitmore on their squad?

We are tanking for '26, to land one of the 4 superstar prospects, or at worst the stud PG, we don't want to win, so we can afford his mistakes, as we try to reset his approach. If we fail in the endeavor, it helps the tank, if we succeed, we probably tank effectively anyway and steal a former top 10 valued player from a very good '23 class. There is no down side because we are not trying to win games in '25-'26, just trying to develop players and keep our 1st round pick (protected through top 8).

[MoreyWins]

Heard about this, thought : Yeah, but why would you do this?

Then read that the Rockets had worked closely with Cam and his people to get best situation for him, not best return and that other GMs were miffed at offering more but being passed over, and thought: Yeah, but why would you do this?

First Stone move I totally hate. Tons of talent, worth working it out with him. But don’t sell low, and definitely don’t intentionally sell lower for Cam’s sake. If we like him that much, **** keep him. If not, get the best return. I get that paying it forward with players can be rewarded in terms of how players around the league see your franchise, but Cam’s got rare 3-level scoring potential, and yeah, he needs to work on making plays for others and defending, we got time. KD’ll be gone in 3-4 seasons, and aside from Reed we have traded the two guys who could be the focal point of the offense amongst our young guys. Would have been nice to keep at least one of them. That’s paying it forward with talent.

We've learned over the course of NBA history that talent isn't the be all, end all for whether a player can be capable of giving you winning ball. Players that skew heavily towards flash over substance are a dime a dozen in the league. There's nothing that's been shown to say he's a future star, let alone a rotation piece to a playoff team. Look at the numbers and you'll see Cam is not the guy you think he is. Heck, look at a highlight reel and you'll see most of his highlights come in garbage time. If majority of your minutes come in garbage time and you have a green light like Cam does, you should be winning your minutes more often.

The Rockets tried to move Cam for a late 1st in this past draft and couldn't. Two good second round picks is about as good as his trade value is gonna get realistically. The alternative to trading him would be to just not play him like you always have been because there are more impactful players on the roster than him.

He and Jalen both are not quality enough to be the lead offensive players to winning team. Jalen showed his inconsistencies all season, the highs and lows of his scoring is well known across the league. Cam just hasn't shown anything of substance to say that the overall scope of his scoring bag is enough for him to have a green light despite being an underwhelming defender and unengaged for anything that doesn't involve him touching the ball. There's no world where a player like that is viable to have on a winning team unless his efficency is top tier, and it's not.

[kg01]

I still don't see why the Hawks couldn't just take him in the Capela trade and if need be throw in some 2nds or something. Only thing i can think of is Quinn just doesn't like his fit for his scheme maybe.

Pass, pass, pass.. They have good chemistry going. No need to sully it.

[Anderson Hunt]

Seems odd for HOU to trade him for what seems like low value, probably expecting a 2nd(31-40) which is ok i guess but he was a 1st round pick 2 years ago. It especially seems odd when they just traded Green, youd expect them to have more opportunity for him to play more now. I get them impression they're going for a more mature locker room getting rid of those guys

Excellent points. Obviously, Thompson slides to starting two-guard now, but who else gets minutes there? Shepherd? Eason? Finney-Smith?

Is a VanFleet/Shepherd backcourt big enough?

[pepe1991]

How are Wizards planning to keep a pick with Middelton, McCullum, Smart, Kispert and Olynyk along with improved Sarr, Bilal, Bub ?

[MoreyWins]

Seems odd for HOU to trade him for what seems like low value, probably expecting a 2nd(31-40) which is ok i guess but he was a 1st round pick 2 years ago. It especially seems odd when they just traded Green, youd expect them to have more opportunity for him to play more now. I get them impression they're going for a more mature locker room getting rid of those guys

Excellent points. Obviously, Thompson slides to starting two-guard now, but who else gets minutes there? Shepherd? Eason? Finney-Smith?

Is a VanFleet/Shepherd backcourt big enough?

The Rockets are switch heavy on defense so the SG, SF, PF positions are all interchangeable. Fred and Reed might get some burn together, we'll see. It mainly depends on the matchup. Fred and Holiday got minutes together last season so it's possible Ime is open to that.