With playing time increasingly unavailable in Houston, the Rockets are trading talented third-year wing prospect Cam Whitmore to Washington.
With playing time increasingly unavailable on a contender, the Houston Rockets are reportedly trading third-year wing prospect Cam Whitmore to the Washington Wizards.
Per ESPN’s Shams Charania, the deal with Washington is for two second-round NBA draft picks. The future draft equity could help the Rockets replenish a stockpile they had to dip into after trading five second-round picks in the recent trade bringing Kevin Durant to Houston.
Whitmore was born in nearby Maryland, and Charania reports that Houston worked with his representation over the last few weeks on finding a new NBA home.
“Houston officials had multiple offers on the table for Whitmore but wanted to see him go somewhere that gave him a legitimate chance to thrive in his career,” Charania writes.
The future draft selections headed to Houston are a 2026 pick from the Chicago Bulls and a 2029 one from the Sacramento Kings, per HoopsHype’s Michael Scotto. Both have no protections, and each team missed the playoffs last season — which could indicate a likelihood of those picks perhaps being in the top half of the second round.
Looking ahead to next season, the Rockets have nine established rotation players between the five projected starters (Fred VanVleet, Durant, Amen Thompson, Jabari Smith Jr., and Alperen Sengun) and Tari Eason, Steven Adams, Dorian Finney-Smith, and Reed Sheppard as top reserves.
Beyond those nine, Clint Capela, Jae’Sean Tate, and Aaron Holiday are also veteran options who played at least some rotation minutes for capable teams last season (Capela did so with the Atlanta Hawks, while Holiday and Tate were in Houston).
So, the minutes math had become challenging for the 20-year-old Whitmore, who would love to showcase his value before he becomes eligible for a contract extension next offseason.
Drafted at No. 20 overall in the 2023 first round, the Rockets wanted to recoup a first-round asset for Whitmore, who showed flashes of strong play over his first two NBA seasons. But it was difficult to extract that type of asset for a talented but somewhat unproven prospect whose current deal has a maximum of two years remaining. (In contrast, a player drafted with a future first-round pick would be under a rookie-scale contract for up to four years.)
So, it seems two second-round picks was a compromise measure, and perhaps the best the Rockets and general manager Rafael Stone could do under the circumstances.
In 98 career games with the Rockets, Whitmore averaged 10.8 points (44.9% FG, 35.7% on 3-pointers) and 3.4 rebounds in 17.4 minutes. At 6-foot-7 and 235 pounds, the Villanova product is an explosive athlete who can score in a number of ways, but inconsistency in areas such as defending and ball movement seemingly made head coach Ime Udoka reluctant to offer a consistent rotation role.
And with roster upgrades on the way in the form of Durant, Finney-Smith, and Capela, that made it tough to see the calculus changing in Houston.
With the Wizards coming off an 18-64 season with the NBA’s second-worst record, Whitmore should find substantially more opportunities in Washington.
