The Wizards‘ acquisition of Cam Whitmore from the Rockets will be folded into a four-player trade with the Pelicans that was reported last month, a source tells Varun Shankar of The Washington Post (subscriber link). That deal sends Jordan Poole, Saddiq Bey and the 40th pick in this year’s draft (Micah Peavy) to New Orleans in exchange for CJ McCollum, Kelly Olynyk and a future second-round selection.
Combining the two trades into one will allow the Wizards to acquire Whitmore without using a separate trade exception or a portion of their mid-level or bi-annual exception.
Houston is trading Whitmore to a rebuilding team to give him a shot at increased playing time, but Shankar points out that it might be just as difficult for Whitmore to get on the court in Washington as it was during his two seasons with the Rockets. He views Bilal Coulibaly, Alex Sarr, Bub Carrington, Kyshawn George and lottery pick Tre Johnson as locks to be in the rotation.
Whitmore will have to compete with young prospects Will Riley, AJ Johnson, Justin Champagnie and Dillon Jones, along with McCollum and fellow veterans Khris Middleton, Marcus Smart, Corey Kispert and Richaun Holmes.
Shankar also points out that Whitmore and Coulibaly were part of the same draft class in 2023, which means they’ll both be eligible for rookie scale extensions next summer.
There’s more from Washington:
- The Wizards waived Anthony Gill last weekend to avoid paying his $2.5MM salary for the upcoming season, but he’s likely to be brought back as the team’s 15th man, Josh Robbins of The Athletic states in a mailbag column. A new deal will be a win for both sides, Robbins explains, as the 32-year-old forward will earn about $121K more on a veteran’s minimum contract and the league’s reimbursement policy will cause Gill to have a smaller salary cap hit. Washington has a minor roster crunch as a result of its moves so far, so the team would have to make additional trades or cuts to make room on the regular season roster for Gill.
- The Wizards aren’t likely to pursue another center to join Sarr, Olynyk and Holmes, Robbins states in the same piece. Even though Washington ranked near the bottom of the league in defensive rebounding percentage, Robbins notes that there’s not a strong incentive to win this season because the team’s first-round draft pick will convey to New York if it falls out of the top eight. Robbins adds that the Wizards didn’t try to sign any big men when free agency began, and he doesn’t expect that stance to change unless Olynyk or Holmes gets traded.
- Assistant J.J. Outlaw will serve as the Wizards’ Summer League coach, team sources tell Robbins (Twitter link). Outlaw joined Brian Keefe’s coaching staff last July after five seasons in Cleveland.
Wizards seem to have leadership finally.
Building like the Rockets possibly? Not a bad thing. I agree with you.
So who will the wizards let go to fill out the roster?
Carrington, Sarr, Kyshawn, AJ Johnson, Dillon Jones (from OKC), Bilal, CJ and Olynyk (from NOP), Middleton, Marcus Smart, Holmes, Champagnie, Kispert, two first-round rookies, and Whitmore.
That’s 16 players under standard contracts, after waiving Gill.
And then they have Tritan Vukcevic on a two-way, but they may want to convert him to a standard deal, he deserved it.
Plus they also drafted a 2-nd round rookie.
They will have to make a trade to make room. And probably make it soon, they haven’t finalized some other trades yet, and haven’t yet signed the rookies.
Don’t have any incentive to win cause they don’t want to lose their pick which is top 8 protected, makes sense as they are still rebuilding.
However they have plenty of quality veterans on expring deals such as Middleton, McCollum, Smart and Olynyk. These guys are past their primes but they still probably want to win and would rather be on contenders than a team looking to have a bottom 8 finish.
Think they’ve got some really solid pieces and making some better business decisions but I still think they should make a couple more moves.
If the Sixers get off to a rough start could see them looking to clear Paul George’s contract.
Sixers: Kris Middleton, John Collins and Champagine
Wizards: Paul George and Jared McCain
Jazz: CJ McCollum
May sound like a lot as a Sixers fan but Maxey and VJ is the backcourt of the future and McCain although I like him would only ever be a sixth man and maybe we would be better off moving him and getting a good return on his value.
Maxey VJ Middleton Collins Embiid
… Grimes Oubre Watford Drummond
Council Champagnie Broome Bona
As for Washington McCain has massive potential and I think would start over Carrington.
Then look to trade Smart and Kispert and have your line up something like this ….
McCain P.George Coulibaly K.George Sarr
Carrington Johnson Whitmore … Olynyk
As for Utah, Collins for CJ is pretty simple. They have forwards in Lauri, Ace, KJ, Hendricks, Williams and Filipowski but they could do with a lead guard to pair with George and Collier in the backcourt.
Collier CJ Ace Lauri Kessler
George Williams KJ Hendricks Nurkic
Not enough in it for Washington. Nets just got the No.22 pick for taking on 45mil/3 years.
McCain, a 16th pick, is not worth taking on 150mil/3 years, or whatever PG is making. And giving Champagnie on top, who’s a very competent player on a very nice contract.
McCain, doesn’t matter where he was drafted, would be the team’s future point guard. He’s got all star potential. Your giving up nothing but expiring deals of guys you don’t care about and having to take back some bad money for your teams future. I think it’s definitely worth it.
PG would also be a good vet for the young guys. He’d teach Johnson and Whitmore a lot
McCain is an excellent shooter at the guard, but he’s not a playmaker, not a base, not somebody shaping the team.
I’ve said it many times and I will repeat again: shooters don’t take bad teams anywhere. I’ve seen all of Washington’s squad shoot a ton jumpers all 2nd part of the season, and it didn’t look good, even when those shots were going in and they won some games. Shooting % is not how you play good basketball, it’s just the rate at which the ball goes through the net. You never draft or trade for a shooter as a rebuilding team. They already drafted Kispert, ‘the best shooter in the draft class’, as he was described.
As with Paul George, he’s done nothing but made questionable moves throughout his career, and is seen as someone who allowed Indiana and OKC build what they have at the expense of others. And he’s too occupied doing things elsewhere, rather being a laser-focused basketball player. I remember when Dinwiddie joined the team and was going through the motions, while doing live streams about cryptocurrencies every other day and looking way more interested in that.
Also, I don’t buy the ‘vets showing young guys the way, young guys learning from the vets’. You could gather every single 20yo boxer in the state of New York in year 1998 to train at the same gym with Mike Tyson, and listen to him every day, and he wouldn’t teach them shіt. Not a single one of them would have gained anything Tyson had as a boxer. Draymond is over there yapping every day on his podcast about helping the young guys, but he isn’t doing shіt to help them. They will become what they will become based on their work, not due to his ‘guidance’.
The person guiding the group, defining the roles, working with players is called a coach. That’s what the team needs – a good coach.
tl:dr
Wizards Forwards, wings and their next year
2025-26 coming. On their roster now.
Coulibaly 6’8” 3rd year, George 6’7” 2nd year
Krispert 6’7” 5th year, Jones 6’6” 3rd year
Champagnie 6’6” 4th year, Martin 6’6” 2nd year
Bealdwin 6’9” 4th year, McDaniels 6th year
Now add Whitmore to this. 6’7” 3rd year
OK now do you understand about committing to wings within next couple of years. This team is not OKC …….. OKC doesn’t happen but every (1976-77 Blazers) 48 yrs lol…….
.
Maybe I am ill-informed since I don’t watch every Rockets game, but I always thought Whitmore was pretty good. Especially when you consider how young he is. I find it odd that he may not get much court time in DC.
I think Washington likes Cam and he’ll end up getting plenty of minutes.