The Rockets were thrilled when Cam Whitmore was still on the board at No. 20 in the 2023 draft, but his two seasons in Houston were marked by inconsistent playing time with occasional flashes of brilliance. With the Wizards visiting Toyota Center tonight, coach Ime Udoka told reporters there was a “number crunch” working against Whitmore, writes Danielle Lerner of The Houston Chronicle.
“We’ve kind of always had depth since I’ve been here, and he kind of got caught in that shuffle,” Udoka said. “And then just some of the things we stressed offensively, defensively for improvement we wanted to see (from) him and he’d be a little up and down with that. But happy for the opportunity he’s getting now and hopefully takes advantage of that.”
It likely would have been even harder for Whitmore to earn regular minutes in the wake of the Kevin Durant trade, so the Rockets opted to deal him to Washington in July in exchange for a pair of second-round picks. Whitmore got off to a slow start with his new team, but he’s scored 19 and 20 points in his last two outings.
“Going to a new situation with a young team, it’s going to take a little bit of time, and just him being young in his career as well, but (he has) all the talent and potential in the world,” Udoka said. “And so just to kind of see what he did the last two games, and that’s what Cam has done when he gets regular opportunity.”
There’s more from the Southeast Division:
- Wizards coach Brian Keefe said forward Bilal Coulibaly is making progress toward returning from a bruised left calf, per Varun Shankar of The Washington Post (Twitter link). Shankar adds that Coulibaly was doing “limited work” at the end of this morning’s shootaround. He’s missing his fourth straight game tonight, and Keefe didn’t offer a timetable for when he might be ready to play.
- Magic forward Franz Wagner plans to wear a mask “for a couple games, probably” after suffering a broken nose on Monday, according to Jason Beede of The Orlando Sentinel. Wagner wasn’t listed on the injury report for tonight’s game in New York, and his teammates aren’t surprised that he decided to keep playing. “He looks savage with the mask,” Paolo Banchero said. “Unfortunate that he has the nose injury, but Franz is a warrior. He’s not going to sit out for nothing. I didn’t even know he broke the nose.”
- Jett Howard has barely been used for most of the season, but he played 19 minutes in Monday’s win over Portland, Beede adds in the same piece. His NBA future is uncertain after the Magic declined his fourth-year option, but he’s determined to find ways to help the team. “I’m just trying to stay mentally level as much as possible and just control what I can control,” Howard said.
- Collin Sexton has been a valuable addition for the Hornets, but Roderick Boone of The Charlotte Observer examines why he hasn’t been seeing many minutes during crunch time.