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After getting bounced in seven games as the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference, the Houston Rockets are clearly ready to make a greater push in 2025-26.
They’ve had a very busy start to the offseason, acquiring Kevin Durant, adding Dorian Finney-Smith and Clint Capela, extending Jabari Smith Jr., re-signing Fred VanVleet (among others) and, most recently, trading Cam Whitmore to the Washington Wizards for draft capital.
In Whitmore’s case, because of the moves to bring in both Finney-Smith and Durant to an already-potent rotation, there was no clear path for consistent rotation minutes for Whitmore, who was entering his third NBA season.
There’s no question that he has budding potential as an ignitor off the bench, but Rockets general manager Rafael Stone is done with waiting for players to develop.
“I think we’re not a developmental team right now,” Stone said Monday, according to Sports Illustrated’s Lachard Binkley. “We wanted to provide [Cam Whitmore] with the opportunity to do, in his career, what we still believe he very much can do. I think Cam is insanely talented, a really nice young man. And we want to provide him an opportunity to go home and be in a situation where he could play through mistakes in a way that we could afford him to in the iteration of the Rockets that he joined.“
Whitmore, 21, was traded for two second-round picks after getting selected No. 20 overall in the 2023 NBA Draft. He was viewed as one of the steals of the draft as a consensus top-10 prospect, but never had a clear runway for playing time.
In two seasons, he averaged 10.8 points and 3.4 rebounds on 44.9 percent shooting and 35.7 percent from 3-point range across 17.4 minutes per game; on a per-75 possession basis, his averages buoy to 22.6 points, 7.1 rebounds and 1.3 steals. He still has plenty to tap into as a playmaker and defender (he’s poor at both), as well as a pure shot-maker.
Perhaps Washington, led by Alex Sarr, Bilal Coulibaly and Tre Johnson, could provide him that opportunity for growth.
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