Starting wings Bilal Coulibaly (lower left leg tightness) and Kyshawn George (illness) missed Friday’s game against Cleveland, creating an opportunity for other young players, but Cam Whitmore only played about five minutes in the Wizards‘ blowout loss to Cleveland, with all of his playing time coming in the first quarter, observes Varun Shankar of The Washington Post (Twitter links).
It’s the fourth straight game in which Whitmore’s minutes have declined, Shankar notes.
Head coach Brian Keefe claimed prior to Friday’s contest that the drop in Whitmore’s playing time wasn’t due to his performance, saying, “Cam’s going to continue to play, he’s doing good.” Yet fellow reserve wings Jamir Watkins (20 minutes), Corey Kispert (20 minutes), Justin Champagnie (19 minutes) and Will Riley (10 minutes) all saw more action against the Cavs than Whitmore.
Keefe said after the game he wanted to see how other players — particularly Watkins — would perform with rotation minutes, according to Shankar (Twitter link).
The Wizards traded a pair of second-round picks to Houston over the summer in order to acquire Whitmore, who was selected 20th overall in the 2023 draft. The 21-year-old small forward will be eligible for a rookie scale extension next offseason.
Here’s more on the Wizards:
- Rookie guard Tre Johnson received his first career start on Friday with Coulibaly and George sidelined, tweets Josh Robbins of The Athletic. The sixth overall pick in this year’s draft finished with 18 points on 7-of-11 shooting in 29 minutes.
- While the team’s 1-8 start has been disappointing, the early play of second-year big man Alex Sarr has been highly encouraging, Shankar writes for The Washington Post (subscriber link). Through eight games, the French center held averages of 19.0 points, 8.4 rebounds, 3.9 assists and 2.3 blocks, with a shooting line of .540/.455/.800 — all of those statistics are significant jumps from his rookie campaign.
- Longtime former Thunder executives Michael Winger (now the Wizards’ president) and Will Dawkins (general manager) have made numerous positive changes behind the scenes even if the Wizards’ on-court product still leaves something to be desired, per Justin Martinez of The Oklahoman (subscription required). Kispert, one of only two holdovers from the previous front office regime, appreciates the new amenities, such as a traveling chef and more travel accommodations for players’ family members. “Everything changed when (Winger and Dawkins) showed up,” Kispert told The Oklahoman. “It adds up to a lot. Ultimately, the little things are what make the player experience special. … A lot of organizations do the same things across the board, but it’s that little stuff in the margins that make the difference.”
From what I’ve been seeing while watching, Cam Whitmore and Coach Keefe are not a good combination for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, Cam is out there to score and be athletic and aggressive and push the pace, which is in line with how a lot of the youngsters on the team are trying to play but he also does so while ignoring Keefe’s calls to slow the pace on numerous occasions. However despite the opportunity he’s getting he isn’t trying to expand his game by getting his team involved. Its always him trying to score by himself once he gets the ball.
Conversely, Keefe is not coaching to win games and its obvious that hes getting orders to tank, when you keep guys like middleton and mccollum getting 20+ minutes a night even when they’re shooting 2-9 or 1-10. Keefe nor Whitmore are really going to gel on this team and I don’t think either will be around for very long. I don’t buy into a single word Keefe is saying about Cam though. Hes undoubtedly in the dog house so to speak.