Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 147: 2023 Draft Profiles - An In-Depth Look at Cam Whitmore

Episode Date: May 23, 2023

This episode, the first of the post-lottery draft profiles, takes an in-depth look at Villanova's Cam Whitmore. 

Welcome back. Everybody, you're listening to another episode of Draft in the Basket. I am Mike here once again with Price, and this is another pre-draft episode, otherwise known as the series of episodes that neither of us and no pistons that wanted us to produce because that means that the Pistons fell in the draft lottery. Now we all know that happened, so here we are. Yeah, Bryce, hi. Welcome back to the show. Always good to have you. Yep. Thanks for having me back. Of course. And so today, we are going to get started on, you know, the next few prospects that this is that might be interested in. We already went over the Thompsons.

That was the first in the draft series for whatever reason. So I'm really remaining to talk about in the Pistons orbit are Cam Whitmore, Jarvis Walker, and Taylor Hendrix. And we're going to talk about Cam today. So first things first, though. Now, in the immediate post-lottery episode, oh, we spoke about how we saw the first four picks of the draft going. And something that we didn't think about, but as much as we should have, was Houston's

position, Houston, who are picking number four. Now, Houston is a result of that very ill-advised trade that sent out a Chris Ball who still had plenty of gas left in the tank for, you know, what turned into one year of James Hardin's little league buddy Russell Westbrook. Rockets gave up a lot. And like they avoided narrowly. Not really narrowly. They got number two.

But there was a top four protected pick in 2021, turned out into Jalen Green, of course. But Rockets could easily have had the Pistons draft luck and ended up losing that. And then they owe another top four protected first-round draft pick in the upcoming season, a top 10 protected pick swap in 2025 and then another top four protected pick in 2026. So it is over for tanking for the Rockets. You know, they wants to be at least the somewhat respectable team. We've heard win now brought up. You know, there's only so much win now they can do.

We've heard the James Harden rumors and so on and so forth. So it does change strategy a bit for them. So with that taking into account price, how do you think it might inform the Rocket's draft strategy, if at all? I don't feel like it's going to make a huge difference, but that could be wrong. So again, the Rocket's draft strategy to me, I think, shouldn't be altered based upon their pick situation based upon what they might do in free agency with James Hardin or another older guard coming in to sort of stabilize things.

Ema Udoka, of course, being a guy who's just very recently coaching a finals team and trying to kind of get this ship moving in the right direction, so to speak. I think that at four, you're still, at least the emphasis should be on getting the best player available. And when you have the ability to pair Jalen Green with another, just an athletic force of nature and Amin Thompson, who also provides a lot of ball handling that this team lacks to pair with Jalen Green, I think it's just the most natural fit in the whole draft. And other than obviously, whoever gets Victor Remenialma. Yeah, whoever. Yeah, yeah.

Got to hold out hope. Anyways. Yeah, sure. Yeah. I can dream. Yeah. I think they said, what was it on draft night? That you could bet like $100,000 and make like $500 or $200 or something like that by betting that he wouldn't be the first overall pick.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, sure. I think it's less than that, actually. Yeah, I agree that Amen is the best pick for them. I think it would just be fantastic. He and Jalen Green would be the most athletic back court in the week. It'd be great to watch.

He'd really free Jalen from the onus of having to be a ball handler, which really isn't his thing. He struggled a little bit as a passer, just making the right pass, making the right read, making the right pass, and I think he's always going to be best off as a secondary ballhandor. You have A-Man going in, just finding Jalen, open looks off the move. If you can find Jalen Green off the move

and get him the ball in a good place, is very hard to stop, get him, you know, get him a good open threes, get him, you know, whatever else. They would just be wonderful to watch, too. Yeah, and I've seen a little bit of pushback online from Rockets fans about that idea, but I just think that a role player doesn't really fit. Like a role player either as a score or as a connective piece, because they already have so many of those types of guys, like in Jabari and Tari-Eason and even, Alprin Shangoon, you know, there's a lot of interesting pieces already, especially kind of at that

four, three, four, five range there in the positionless league that we're in right now. So why not get a guy to play point guard who can really run pick and roll and then free up Jalen Green to just cook? Yeah. And I think, like, we've heard the rumors about Hardin. but Hardin is not getting any younger. He is very much past his peak. And there's no guarantee that you're going to be able to find an elite ball handler

and free agency or by trade. So even if you are very, very confident that you're going to be able to sign Harden in the offseason, I think you still go for the upside swing with, and even if it means playing him off the bench for a while. I don't know how they long, they would be insane to sign Harden until like a four-year max deal. Nobody's going to do that. I hope nobody's just be a horrible idea for whoever did it. if they did do that, they might think, okay, well, you know, should be drafted ball handler here.

But when it comes to, like, you've got Jagari Smith, who's, you know, who's projecting as a starter, I'm sure. You've got Tari's and I'm sure they're projecting. I would imagine they're projecting as a starter. And you've got Shangun, of course, at center. So I don't really see them drafting a role player just to play from the bench, you know, like a high floor guy like Hendricks or Walker. So there's always trade in a pick too. but number four in this draft is not all that valuable. Maybe they pair it with Jabari Smith or something,

but even then it's not all that valuable. It's one of those things where the player that you want to acquire is worth so much more, and the players that you could acquire are worth so much less, that you're pretty much locked into either just swapping picks around and just trying to accrue draft capital for future deals, let's say. Which they're not going to do. which they're not going to do if they're trying to really turn the corner.

So here we are. Yeah. It's interesting, like, looking at Portland, there's number three, and may conceivably trade that pick because they want to try to build a championship team around Damien Lillard, you know, for some win-now help. It's been said that they want to, you know, trade number three in Anthony Simons for an elite small forward. I wish them luck because that's not a very good package for an elite guy. Maybe you like Zach Levine, I don't know, even then.

And for them, I mean, if they were number two and you have a team, it would be very confident in getting screwed to be a different story. Right. But, you know, even there, it's a weird thing. You know, it's just, and it's, of course, impossible to predict what's going to happen with trades. There's even been some talk that the Pistons might try to trade it. So I don't. Yeah, I don't know.

The more I, in any case, let's move on to Cam Whitmore, shall we? Yeah, let's go for it. So, yeah, did I mention this? We're doing Cam today. I don't know. We just had to redo like 10 minutes of recording because something went wrong. But if I didn't, yep, we're talking about Cam. Whitmore today. So sure are. Came out of Villanova.

Shade over 19, excuse me, under 19, he'll be on draft nights. Six foot six six without shoes, without shoes being what the NBA, MBA, excuse me, has gone by since the start of the 2018, 2019 season. The NCAA does not. He's a very dense 235, six foot eight and a half wingspan, fairly small hands, like on the lower end of his draft class at the combine, but, you know, not catastrophically. So in terms of stats, 26 games played, 20 games started, about 20, 27 minutes per game, 12 and a half points of five and a half rebounds, well under one assist per game.

We'll talk about that later. About half a block, one and a half steals, one and a half turnovers, one and a half fouls. On 48, 3470 splits for 57% for shooting. In terms of a shot profile, attempted about 46% of his shots at the rim, 12% from mid and short range on jumpers, and then the remaining 42% from three point range. He shot 66% of the rim. He was assisted on only about 35% of his shots at the rim, which is pretty good. Also assisted on only about 54% of his three-pointers, and he took a lot of pull-ups. So pretty difficult shot profile, and a lot of those pull-ups were through heavy contests. And it's really at the upper reaches of every combine strength and agility metric,

except for standing vertical, which really isn't all that useful, and he was near the top of max vertical. So let's get to the physical pros here. So price, why don't you kick it off? What would be the first one for you? basically his ability to be an elite quick first step type player who can get up to his top speed very quickly he's very bursty and he can transition that into paint touches with not a lot of room he really at the college level just outmuscled out hustled players left and right and that I would say is his main

physical trait that you're looking at with him. Yeah, I think that's his defining trait. He's an excellent athlete. His first step is very sneaky too. He just takes it and suddenly he's sneakily at top speed and it's like, how did that happen? How did you get there? He gets to full speed almost without it being noticeable that he was accelerating. So very explosive, good top speed.

And definitely that top speed manifests itself in transition as well with it. You know, the combination of explosiveness and speed and also his leaping ability. He is a fantastic two-foot leaper, especially with the runway. And, you know, he's a pretty darn good one-foot leaper as well with the runway. If he runs into multiple coverage, his one-foot leaping gets a little bit worse. And, yeah, you mentioned him out muscling people. He is a very strong 235 at 6'6. Not easily bullied, takes contact easily, can carve out space in terms of rebounding,

which he couples with his leaping. So it's enticing. It's an enticing combination. Exactly. I mean, the ability to transition that speed into power is something that is very underrated when it comes to talking about athleticism because oftentimes a lot of the really fast players aren't able to, like, actualize that into creating good looks for themselves because they're just going to get out

muscled and that can be on ball but also off ball. Say you're doing an off ball screen and you just can't come off of a guy because he's stronger than you. And then, you know, that then you're behind the play and they have to transition to their next look and, you know, you're not getting a touch. Basically, he is going to be the type of guy who is going to be a real force with both the speed and power that he plays at all over the court. And that's the main, I think, appeal is that you're getting this elite skill trait of having dynamic verticality, speed, and power all in a relatively large package in 7, 6 foot 6, without shoes.

Yeah. Yeah, definitely the combination of, like I said, of speed strength and weaving ability is very unusual and extremely practical useful at the NBA level. Also, I think his agility is pretty good. His body control is pretty good. He can contort himself to a degree when it comes to scoring at the rim. And finally, his lateral mobility is real good, which is useful for obvious reasons, especially in defense.

So he is very close to a total package as an athlete. And like you said, guys who tend to be super explosive are generally nowhere near as strong as he is. I mean, 235 at 6 foot 6. What I imagine is very, very low body fats. I mean, this is a very, very strong player. Yeah. Yeah. So great on the athletic side of things.

When it comes to cons, I would say there really are that many physically. He's not the longest. That's one thing. I only at 6'8.5. you know, at 6 foot 6 is not much of a positive wingspan. It's not killer, but, you know, small hands. Yeah, those inches matter. Yeah, and small hands, again, not a killer weakness, but not ideal.

I would also say, again, not great as a one-foot weeper if he doesn't have a runway, especially if he drives into really heavy coverage far away from the rim. You can't really muscle through and weave off of one foot. That's sort of the difference between him and like an Amin-Thompson. Yeah. who has that ridiculous ability to get up very high on one foot in tight, tight coverage down low. It's not really Cam's forte, but if there's any daylight at all, he can explode into those windows. Yeah, you can explode into a lane and then elevate brilliantly at the rim.

All right, so let's move on to offense. So his pros on offense. I see Cam as a potentially high-scoring upside player as a three-in-drive guy. Yes. Yeah. Very strong on the drive. Great for a step. Defenders will bounce off of his frame.

If he's got any sort of runway again, he can get up there. He's got good touch. His strength won't be quite as much of an advantage in the NBA, but it will be an advantage. Yeah. I think the idea of him as a. three and drive player is the upside that you're betting on when you take him at five if we were to take him at five of course he's a excellent excellent driver and that i think is the most compelling part to me as his game stands right now is he's not necessarily the most creative but the

strength and ball handling is good enough that the space in the NBA is really going to allow him to work through guys and get to the basket and put up a lot of points that way. It's just like easy, easy dunks, getting to the line, all of that type of thing is going to be his bread and butter. Yeah. And, you know, not only from on the ball, I think he'll be very strong and explosively attack and closeouts. Yep.

Sporting through open lanes. and it'll be strong at, you know, from on the ball, strong at exploiting mismatches with his first step and his strength. And it'll be great in the sort of defense's scrambling situation that you'd hope Caden and Ivy will generate. I think basically if he can, if the defense is wrong-footed and he gets the ball and he can drive through, it's going to be very difficult to stop him, you know, when he has that open lane. Or again, just when he attacks the close-out, like you're in trouble if you have to attack a close-out on Cam Whitmore because he's just going to blow by you. And exactly.

We'll be strong on cuts as well, though those are actually a very low volume source of offense in the NBA. He will be a vertical spacer, and that's nice. That's always helpful to have more than less of those. Let's talk about a shooting. Solid enough shooter at the NCAA level, better than you might think. He took a lot of difficult pull-ups, but he did it 40% of his catch-and-shoots, only 30% of his pull-ups. I think he's got some upside there, and he was attempting them through very difficult contests. Yeah, that's one part of Villanova having a bit of a rough season.

to put it mildly kind of factors into this because he wasn't set up by anybody at all really and watching Villanova is kind of funny if you want to dive into the tape yourself um there's just not a lot going on and kind of Cam Whitmore initiating everything um and he can absolutely i think be a pull-up threat further into his career but off the catch the numbers are really encouraging and I'm not concerned at all about having the kind of slightly diminished three point numbers because of the sheer difficulty of the shots he was taking like with Victor Wembenyama. Yeah.

Yeah. And I think that pull-up upside is very real. It is. Yeah. And if he can get that alongside his drive, you know, watch out. Because that means you have to play him very closely and that's going to make his abilities off the dribble that much more difficult to overcome for a defender. Yeah.

And what did we just see kind of go on in the Eastern, or sorry, Western Conference finals is Jamal Murray just cooking people whenever he got even a little bit of daylight. Yeah. And not saying he has any amount of Jamal Murray's touch, like Jamal Murray, that's obviously an exceptional player. But the idea is that that type of player. has a meaningful role in playoff teams, in a playoff context. Yeah, I'm not sure if I would comp him to Jamal Murray,

who just makes a crap out of really difficult shots. Yep. But definitely if you have the ability to make guys play you very closely, guys just have to, defenders have to play you very closely at the three-point line because you can just pull up if you're given space. And Kim took a lot of difficult pull-ups through very, you know, basically with hands right in his face. But if you have that ability and you have to be played,

closely. I mean, your first step is going to become that much more dangerous because guys just can't, they got to play very close to you. So, yeah, if you can just get that and do his repertoire, then awesome. Then he becomes like a, you know, like a potential 20 point per game score. If he's just got the catch and shoots, still a very valuable player. And yeah, I feel like his handle also is fairly good. Should translate decently well to the NBA. Definitely not a weakness by any means. Yeah, I think there's real potential for Whitmore to be a at least motion shooter off the catch. It's not quite in this game yet,

but the threat of it developing, I think, is very enticing. And that's sort of when we talk about ultimate upside. We can get more into that. But I'm pretty bullish on his three-point shooting in general. And because of that, with the drive combination, I think you're looking at a pretty robust offensive. of profile for a guy who's only going to be 18 at the draft and will be barely 19 for most of the NBA season.

Yeah, I think he's got very high scoring upside, definitely. And about motion threes, I agree. You could see him at Villanova relocating around the perimeter, getting set quickly and shooting. He's not going to be one of those guys like a Max Struz or old Duncan Robinson who can just take the ball and jump and shoot all in one motion. But yeah, I think he's got a lot. upside as a more standard motion shooter, which would also be very nice.

Even if he's a guy who just gets it together as it, you know, as just good as a driver and is as strong as a catch and shoot guy. That's still a very valuable with his level of athletic, is a very valuable offensive player. Yeah, exactly. So let's transition to cons. I'd say this is a smaller one. You know, we all know what the major con is going to be here.

A shooting for him, I think, needs a little bit of work. The NBA is a game of inches and his shot is slow with low elevation. And again, game of inches could lead to some blocks. there. Yeah, he can definitely elevate when he gets his feet set, but obviously, as you said, it's game of inches, game of even fractions of inches like Kevin Durant's toe. It's just comes down to the thinnest margins sometimes. And that's probably like a little nitpick to throw in with the shooting, but the bigger concern, I think, is the passing. And, maybe just overall feel of the game or offensive IQ, it just isn't that great.

And that's a real reason why he's not really considered over Miller at this point. Yeah, his passing at Villanova was terrible. And I know it's brought up that Villanova averaged very few assists, and that's true. I don't feel like you can blame Villanova for that anymore than you could blame a guy for a team that sucks, to generating open threes for missing his open threes. Whitmore had possessions in which you just drove into double-triple coverage with teammates like one pass away, an easy pass-away that were wide open. Yeah.

It does seem like a really big issue where he can actually miss like easy reads. And that's a thing that can be an absolute killer when it comes to a guy who's going to want the ball in his hands, at least some amount in order to really maximize his score. scoring ability that what if he gets sealed off and he becomes a real, real mismatch when a team doubles him and he can't pass out of it? Yeah. This is another question with a young player. Is it rawness? Did the system have something to do with it? Was he not encouraged to pass, though I find that unlikely? So is it rawness or is it just a question of situational awareness or just over-eagerness to shoot the ball? Is he routinely charged it in multiple coverage again when teams were open and then

just took bad shots. And that's a big problem in the NBA. Like, you know, Caden Ivy, for example, you can say Caden Ivy can pass. That's not enough. If you're a perimeter player and you're anything, but like the most dedicated guy who just takes the ball and shoots at the perimeter, you have to be able to make the basic pass off the drive. It hurts if you can and defenses will exploit it. It couldn't have said it better myself. We have two pretty good passers in the fold right now in Caden ivy and Duren has some upside there at the five but if you have a black hole ball stopper like that then the fluidity of your offense just goes down on a almost exponential level and we've seen that as Pistons fans a lot over the last few years and obviously Whitmore is more

skilled more athletic yada yada than the guys we've been playing because we've been bad um But that doesn't mean that we can just overlook that there's a real potential for him to be a ball stopper. He seems to miss a lot of the easy reads. And because of that, it doesn't allow us to fully maximize the potential ball movement from Caden Ivy and their ability to relocate and their ability to generate shots off the catch. And while, yes, he will bring an extra athletic downhill component that we really lack, if that leads to easy stops for the defense, then we kind of won't be able to advance our, excuse me, our overall sort of directive of having a functional offense. Yeah.

And that I think is if you're not on the Cam Whitmore bandwagon, that would be the primary reason why. Yeah. Yeah, again, I mean, we're not talking a guy who's going to be a primary handler and creating for others. The ability to just make the basic pass off the drive, like when you have the opportunity to do so, when you're confronted, when you're drawing multiple coverage is basically an essential these days in terms of, you know, effectively wrong footing the defense. This isn't just a thing that's a staple of the heat. who have always been excellent at it under Spilstra, or like the Raptors who basically have just, or in the championship season.

Like we saw, even Kauai could be like a five assists per game guy just by making the basic pass. Exactly. Off the drive. So not being able to do that hurts. Like again, like you said, not only because just the ball can completely stop with the guy, but also because it prevents you from doing that,

prevents you from just making the right basic pass on a possession, which you might have to do multiple times. Yeah. oftentimes the fundamentals are the things that come up the most in sports and if you can't do this fundamental thing as an on ball creator of offense then your value is going to be severely diminished yeah or even attacking off a closeout because it's possible that somebody will get there in time I don't think it'll happen much with cam but it'll happen and you've got to be able to make the right pass. Just the ability to make a basic read and a basic pass is necessary. And there are real

questions about if Cam can do that. And like you said, that is this primary question mark. Because he had like a historically low assist rate at Villanova. Yeah. And sample size, system, context, age, all of that plays a factor. But he was missing basic reads. And that shows up all the time. Even a lot of his highlights are like him kind of forcing the issue and just making a big athletic play when there was guys open. And maybe he didn't trust those players because of where Villanova was at last year as a team. But I don't know. That feels like an easy excuse to just sort of hand wave away what might be a serious lack of overall like offensive IQ at this stage. I mean, it would be a dreadful lack of offensive IQ if this is just the ceiling.

Yeah. Yeah. And that would really hurt. Yeah, it would be painful. And, yeah, again, when he drove into multiple coverage, generally just take a bad shot. Being, like, the most amazing one-foot weeper meant that when he got challenged in multiple coverage, he generally just couldn't get off the ground. Like, he'd look a lot like Sadiq Bay in the Villanova uniform at that point. You're standing far away.

So, and beyond that, his wingspan, it doesn't really, I don't think it'll really hurt, but it's an advantage she doesn't have. So, let's move on to defense. So what you name is his primary. I don't think there's really a ton to say about, I don't know if there's something to say about his defensive awareness, but I'd say for me on offense, just be strong. We can switch on to Biggs and do a decent job. We're definitely switchable as an on-ball defender.

Yeah, I would agree with that. He's strong. He's switchable. The lateral quittent. is really good. Lack of length is a little concern there, but I think there's a lot of willingness on his part. I was never necessarily blown away by defensive tape,

but I also felt like he gave a lot of appropriate effort, and he should be a fine defensive cog in a good defense. Yeah. I've got more concerns about his off-ball defense. We spoke about that a little bit off a little bit last week. Like his athleticism definitely can help make up for things on the ball. Like he's athletic enough to stick to just about anybody. You know, he's got a good defensive first step.

He's got good lateral movements. But it's the off ball thing that concerns me. Like one, just one last protgover. He's pretty good at bursting in a passing way and to grab steals and whatnot. But yeah, questions about his defense awareness as well. Like being able to stick to guys on the ball is, He's a very useful skill, but a lot of defense in the NBA's all-ball decision-making, and his at times was quite bad.

Like, what are you doing bad? Not like Marvin Bagley or James Wiseman bad, but puzzling decisions. Yeah. Part of that is going to be youth, but also part of that is just goes back to that basketball IQ question that we have on offense, which is like when we get to the more complicated, more kind of X's knows deep critical thinking aspects of the game, it seems like that's actually a real struggle for him. Yeah, and that's a major concern.

And like I said, it's not like it's not Bagley level. It's not Wiseman level on either end. I mean, Wiseman is really something else as far as his awareness and decision making. Something else as in astonishingly bad. And again, you hope that's rawness and you hope it's rawness for Cam as well. Sure. That's that's another gamble you're making. So and then wingspan.

You bring it up again. Like you brought it up. Wingspan is nice to have and his isn't great. It's not horrible, but it's not very good. So yeah, let's move on to ceiling and just in the interest of disclosure. We went a little bit faster in this episode because there have been some connectivity issues. We've had to separate this out into like five different recordings already. So we're maybe going a little bit faster than we usually would.

I feel like we've gotten out everything we've wanted to say, though. So I don't think we've really been skipping over anything. But let's talk ceiling. What would you say cam's ceiling is? Yeah, I think the ceiling is if, so are we talking 100 percentile? Are we talking like 85, 75 percentile? What you say is it's likely sealing? Likely sealing.

I would say he is an excellent third option on a really good team. Yeah, I agree with that. If you have that pull-up shooting from three, like I said, I think that the catch-and-shoot will be fun. If you have that pull-up shooting from three to couple with his driving, and if he can just make those basic passes, doesn't need to be a primary, secondary playmaker, just make those basic passes, then I agree. You have a third option on a contender, and for the Pistons, if Caden Ivy are what they hope,

you hope they are, maybe you got your trio there. And he can, you know, be good enough on defense to not be a proper. Yeah, be an even defender. Yes, just an even defender where the awareness and the athleticism even out that you can at least trust him to handle some assignments and he can guard pretty much any position. One through four. One through four. Yeah, some guys at center are just going to be so tall that there's really no beating them out. Yeah, yeah.

He'll be strong enough to at least impact a lot of players and quick. enough to stick with the faster ones. So that means, that's a very playable player. Yeah, definitely. The shooting, the driving, I think all of that could translate. And then if we get into the 99 percentile, is, is the offensive IQ just something that really had to develop? Then we might see him be maybe more of a Jalen Brown.

Yeah, or the defensive eye and the defensive IQ. Yeah. True. Yeah. And that is floor. And I'm actually fairly confident in his floor. I think that, again, the catch and shoot will be there, and the driving will be there. And I don't think he's going to be a complete dunce defensively.

I think he'll be playable, for example, in the postseason. So I would say, like, you know, seventh man, maybe on a good team, I think is probably his floor. You know, a guy who struggles with his passing. But you're just really using him as a very dedicated three. They're very dedicated three-and-drive guy off the bench, whom you're not going to play big minutes in every situation. Yeah. but that's at least an NBA player. I don't think he has the bus potential of like in Amin or Assar Thompson where

there are just non-factors pretty quickly. So in that sense, yeah, I'm pretty confident about the floor as a usable NBA player. It's just if you're lower on him, then moving back in the draft makes a lot of sense. Yeah. And now, yeah. Oh, sorry. Don't interrupt you.

You're good. All right. So, and then we get to kind of a saucy bit for the pistons, which is fit. And, you know, yeah, you might think, oh, well, Cam Whitmore if he gets things together or even moderately gets things together, it would be really good fit with the pistons. If we're talking him as a starter, I'd have a couple of concerns. Number one is his size. And number two is his defense.

Yeah. I feel like we'll just start with defense. even again, I think he's likely to probably top off as an even defender. And that means you're basically signing away your chances with Ivy, who I think is going to remain weak in Cade, who I think maybe you're slightly positive. You're basically signing away your chances of having really an elite or at the very least high-level defense, especially in the postseason, which is a consideration versus if you draft a guy like Hendricks, for example,

or Jaros Walker, where your defensive ceiling gets a lot higher. Yeah, that is kind of the thing. I've been playing around with in my head the last couple of days, as I've really processed through what the options at 5 are if we stay there, which is the defensive ceiling might be kind of capped with Whitmore in a way that is kind of invisible because he is such a compelling offensive player, that when we zoom out, who is actually going to be the defensive playmaker that we see time and again is just so important for playing meaningful basketball. Yeah, especially in the postseason.

Yeah. I mean, things in the postseason, defenses get, the defense is really tightened up. And it's very, not quite as important to have a good defense in the regular season, but you want to have a really strong defense in the postseason. especially because you're playing a lot more minutes against the opponent's best players because rotation is really shortened and also any defensive weakness will be mercilessly attacked in a way that it really isn't quite as much in the regular season. And yeah, especially if Whitmore is a below average defender and you're playing him next to Ivy

and no disrespect to Jaden who tries super hard, I just think he's unlikely to get there. I think he'll be able to get to the position of non-liability. that if you have two below average defenders, that's a multiplicative thing, especially in the postseason, not just an additive thing. Exactly. And we saw that with the Sacramento Kings, just to pull back a little bit, I've been very low on that team, even though they've made a lot of strides, at least as threats to be more than just a one or two round team, because Fox and Sabonis are just, they cap the team defensively, because they cap the team defensively, because they're, they have to play so much to generate the offense to get the team into the playoffs. They cap that team defensively in a really real way. And that I think is where we could see ourselves as a really fun yet really ineffective team. And if you want to sell seats, want to sell tickets, you know, sure, that's a great thing.

But if you're trying to win in. Yeah. Yeah. And the postseason. Yeah. Yeah. The Kings were a bottom-time regular season defense. There has been one bottom-ton regular season defense in the last four seasons that has made the second round. And that was the Kevin Durant, James Harden, Kyrie Irving Nets. I'm not sure if Kyrie played at all, but I can't remember if he was injured. So that's a concern. And you need so much offensive talent to make up for it that it's like the super team that never was. It just doesn't happen. Oh, yeah, they would have, I think that they would have been basically unstoppable with all three of those healthy. They would be the best, you know, the most dangerous offense in the history of the league.

Yeah. But that never happens. So, and that's size. So you draft Whitmore, and again, let's assume that Cade and Ivy workout, which I think there's a high probability there. You've got, you know, your one through three are about six four, six, six, and six six, which isn't catastrophic. But again, it's more that you're just giving up the opportunity. to have a really long lineup. Yeah.

Yeah, and really long and really tall. Versus if we achieve the pipe dream of like Taylor Hendricks and Jeremy Grant, which would be terrifying on defense. Yeah. That's why every decision in this next few months for, or six weeks for Weaver is going to be tremendous for how we proceed. And it's not that I'm opposed to Whitmore. I don't want to come off that way.

It's just there would need to be moves made to sort of complement that selection. Yeah. You want real size of power forward. Yeah. A real length of power forward. You need it, really. Yeah. And I don't know how you get that type of player without trading five.

And then on and on the situation can go from there. Yeah. Again, it's not like an absolute necessity, but it's a really, really nice thing to have. And I feel like with Whitmore, you're risking giving up the possibility of a, It's the opportunity cost. You're risking giving up the possibility of having a high level defense. And you're giving up the possibility of having that really, really long lineup that can cause fits for opposing defenses and also is useful on offense. So there's an opportunity cost there for sure.

So let's just finish this up. What does he fall on your draft board? So there's been a little bit of renovation. I had him at four. So four after the top three are gone after Miller, Scoot and Wimbunyama or in general? Exactly. So I had him four coming into draft lottery night. Gotcha.

I've done kind of some thinking and I've moved him down just a little, just a touch, and I got him six. And who's ahead of him? That would be Taylor Hendricks and Jaros Walker in that order. Gotcha. Yeah, I know that I'm backing out of my own question here. This one's just so hard for me to wrap my head around because there's a lot of upside there. Like he's a very high upside player, especially as his score.

But, and I know there's the philosophy that you draft best player available and whatever, which I think is incredibly oversimplistic. Yeah. In that best player available. Unless your team is a blank slate like the Pistons were in 2020. To go into the 2021 draft, of course, that wasn't a difficult decision for I'm, unless your team's a blank slate, I mean, if you have some pieces there that you really feel are part of your future, then fit is an important consideration and best player available. So it may change for me.

I think I'm just thinking in terms of what's likely to happen. Again, I think A men's going at four. So I'm just going to speak in terms of just among those three guys, unless Weaver throws this really for the loop and goes with like Anthony Black or something. I don't think it's particularly. likely. Maybe I'll eat my words, but I would put him, goodness, at either five or six. It's hard for me to pick between he and Hendricks. I'm not a huge Jerus Walker fan, so ahead of Walker. And maybe kind of neck and neck with Hendricks. Yeah, it's tough. I keep going back and forth. All right. Any closing thoughts?

I will keep reiterating this until the draft. I do not envy the position Troy Wey. is in this is a really difficult decision there's a lot of compelling arguments for and against players trading back trading up trading out I think are at least considerations what you do in free agency or what's likely to be to arrive because we know colluding you know it doesn't happen but we get we get colluding anyways oh yeah tampering yeah oh yeah definitely it never happens right Oh, yeah. I'll just hire you. And if you happen to talk to your son or on the dinner table about signing a contract with us, then it's all good. Yeah, for this rough dollar figure.

Yeah. Hey, dude, I was just talking to my son. We're referring to Jalen Brunson, his father as an assistant for the most. Yeah. So it's like, oh, yeah, surely you can't fault me for, you know, just having dinner table conversation while we're playing basketball. Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, there's a lot of facts. actors here. I don't think coaching plays a role in it per se. It's just the, but that's another thing that has to be decided upon. And so I just think if you go with Whitmore, um, there needs to be a real tangible solution for the power forward spot of a guy who can actually be a defensive difference maker. And I love Isaiah Stewart, but he's not that. And I think, yeah, not a power forward. Yes, yes.

At center, he's real good. Yeah. Yeah, and I just think that it's this thing where if we take Whitmore, you almost have to say, okay, we're going to actually be bad for another year and try to like iron this, this thing out. Whereas I could see, and we'll get to Hendricks, I could really see Hendricks being the real natural fit. Yeah, yeah, I agree. That's definitely a possibility. Yeah.

All right. So that's it for the Cam Whitmore episode. at price again thanks for thanks for thanks for joining the show for what i think is the fifth episode in a row i know it's yeah uh absolutely yeah always great to talk draft stuff with you so folks as always want to thank you for listening catch you in the next episode