I’ll start with this: I love the Wizards trade for Cam Whitmore. He might or might not become a good player, but he’s young (entering his age 21 season), athletic, and was cheap to acquire (Washington paid two second round picks). As Matt Modderno said on his podcast, this is exactly the type of move a rebuilding team should make.
My stat-based draft prospect tool, Ye Olde Draft Analyzer (YODA for short), liked Whitmore a lot. He ranked eighth in his draft class, and his score in YODA would have ranked in the 10-12 range in this year’s group.
For reasons that aren’t entirely clear, he plummeted on draft night, falling all the way to the 20th pick where he was selected by the Houston Rockets. He immediately ran into the kinds of obstacles that often afflict promising youngsters selected later in the first round — a loaded roster, and a team that wanted to win and didn’t have a lot of minutes to devote to the development of a 19- or 20-year-old.
In the 1,600+ minutes he’s gotten as a pro, he’s been kinda-sorta okay. His overall performance was solid as a rookie (PPA: 73) and slipped a bit (PPA: 67) in year two. That’s not as worrisome as it may seem. Most of his numbers were “about the same” in both seasons. His rebounding went up, his per minute assists nearly doubled, and his turnovers crept up a bit.
That 67 PPA is not a concern — prospects who enter the NBA at 19 (like Whitmore did) often don’t make significant jumps in year two. Their bigger jumps come in years three and four. My career forecaster thinks he has a solid decade of above average production in his future, including multiple years in the sub-All-Star range (meaning: borderline/arguable case for being an All-Star).
Is that possibility worth a couple second round picks? You bet.
Last thing: I ran Whitmore’s 2024-25 season through my Statistical Doppelganger Machine, which weighs several stat categories and produces a list of player seasons “most similar” to the reference player.
Here’s the list:
- Naz Reid, 2019-20, MIN — This was Reid’s rookie year. Since then, he’s established himself as a valuable reserve with the Minnesota Timberwolves. The Wizards would be happy if Whitmore became a high 80s PPA (Reid’s peak so far is 88) reserve.
- Ryan Anderson, ORL, 2009-10 — I feel like fans might feel disappointed by this comp, but I urge you to recall how good Anderson was becoming before he injured his back and suffered a devastating personal tragedy. In his era, he was the platonic ideal of the stretch-four. The Wizards would be ecstatic if Whitmore could become as productive as the pre-injury/tragedy Anderson was.
- Trey Lyles, 2018-19, DEN — This was Lyles’ age 23 season, which was actually one of his worst. The following year he went to San Antonio and had what would be the best year of his career. Five years later, he’s still a useful reserve forward who’s reasonably competent from three-point range, and an above average rebounder.
- Rodney White, 2003-04, DEN — Year three of White’s non-stellar career. He peaked with a 70 PPA the following season. While the number are similar, Whitmore is already ahead of where White was as a player.
- Jordan Hamilton, 2012-13, DEN — This was year two of Hamilton’s career, which started with promising signals and then fizzled. Three subpar seasons after this one, Hamilton was out of the league.
After this, the doppelganger machine provides another season from Naz Reid, followed by names like Moritz Wagner (in Orlando), Kevin Knox (yikes), and Charlie Villanueva (eh). A little further down the list is Jonathan Kuminga’s rookie year, and Jaren Jackson Jr.’s 11-game third year.
What does this tell us about the likelihood that Whitmore reaches his potential with the Wizards? Not much — the comps are mainly for entertainment value. The better information is from his actual performance the past couple years in Houston, which while not great, was also not bad for someone his age.
There’s a chance he could become a very good player for Washington.