No they don't or didn't - they made tons of mistakes but because our team sucked they played on and got better, that is what Cam needs. The point is, we have to find out IF he is a player or not, and we aren't doing that by playing Brooks, or FVV, we aren't winning a ring this year, we should be TRYING to win WHILE developing players still, we don't know if Reed and or Cam are going to be good, and we aren't increasing their trade value, it is 100% a wasted year for them - when we should be trying to win AND developing guys and increasing their value for trades if needed this summer. We are doing a half assed job of building a winning team and we should be looking more towards the future....IMHO. DD
Cam will more than likely be gone this summer. I'd definitely pkg him and whatever 1st we end up with to move up in the draft. Sick of seeing that crap A$$ look on his face. I bet Ime is over it already.
If we are being critical of Ime's handling of Cam, I think we need to be real about both of the parties involved. We know Ime can build a winning team. Ime builds teams with a tough, relentless mindset that translates into wins. For however stubborn, or inflexible Ime seems to many fans (me, included) at times, the players respond. We have seen this in Boston and we see it with the Rockets. You could argue that Ime is the most important person in the franchise right now. There has been a complete culture re-set since he got here. There is less information about Cam. We all saw Cam Whitmore drop to 20, even though he was a consensus top 5 talent. Was it just a fluke, or is there something behind this? There were reports that Kyle Neptune, Villanova's head coach, had some negative things to say about Cam's approach and attitude. Why would this word get out there? Is it slander, or is there something to this? What are his basketball issues? What is his role? There is no question that we have seen Cam's immense talent and his basketball and maturity issues. I think Cam should have been given a longer leash this year to see what we have here, but the coaching staff doesn't see it this way. In the middle of March, the Rockets have a legitimate shot to make the playoffs as one of the top 4 seeds. Ultimately, I am going to trust Ime's judgement since he sees Cam every day.
Sure it does, he feels he is better than some that are playing and is being held back - frustration. He will need to grow out of that, for sure, but it is bullshit that people are crapping on a 20 year old because he wants to play. We literally just watched Ime leave our best player on the floor to get injured up 33 in the 4th quarter? I mean, Ime isn't playing and whether he is a GREAT coach or just an average one with discipline is way up in the air. Ime needs to learn that a ONE SIZE fits all approach doesn't work, even Popovich had to make room for Manu and Parker.....Ime needs to grow too. DD
You know things are going well when people are making a fuss about the players outside the rotation. It's like arguing over the 26th man in baseball. Whitmore has a ton of god given ability but he's not gonna play here if he doesn't get on the same page as everyone else. I'm totally okay with that. After years of watching people get unearned playing time, it's so refreshing to see a talented but flawed player being challenged to improve first.
Completely agree, but people are making a fuss because he could be SO DAMN GOOD. His potential is much higher than your typical out of the rotation guy. But he absolutely needs to mature, and I have no idea if he will or not. Tough love will either make or break his future in Houston.
He is 20 years old, that put back dunk tonight was something not many people in the league can do. DD
Or just opportunity. It’s very common for prospects like Cam to need to float around the league a bit before the right opportunity presents itself. Look at KPJ now seemingly finding a need and asserting himself with Milwaukee. There are countless other examples. Cam was probably just drafted on a team that was already too young and deep with athletic wing depth. Had the rockets been an older team that was capped out with aging stars and little depth I could see him being a key piece in the rotation to take advantage of playing off of stars. Think of KJ Martin playing off of Harden here in Houston but with the ability to also shoot 3’s. I think Cam will be a decent player in the league but I’m growing concerned about the fit here unless they consolidate players in a trade for a veteran star or two. If the team is more or less the same next year you’d probably be smart to go ahead and move him if there’s value you can get back.
Well put, personally I am more interested in the mental aspect, what really aches him....what is holding him back. It will all come out but much much later. You have this picture of the perfect underdog that just manages obstacle after obstacle.....however we just see a lot of flawed individuals.
I dunno if there is drama behind the scenes or not. Could be what we see is how it is. 20 year old who think he’s better than most the other players on the team, isn’t getting as many touches as they would like, and tries to carry himself in a “too cool for school” manner that turns off the middle aged former blue collar NBA types like Ime who coach in the NBA… or really any coach in sports for that manner. Even on my daughters team that I coach there is one player that has this attitude all of the time and if I could bench her to send a message I would… that player being my daughter!! The situation to me seems pretty straight forward and definitely not uncommon in bball at all levels.
There is a reason why he fell from his projected 5th spot to 20th and that mystery has not been solved completely. We just heard rumors and reports from all sides.
Maybe I’m wrong but I thought the mystery was mostly solved: -injury his one year in college had teams concerned -college coach gave discouraging referral to teams -teams drafting in the mid to late lotto were playoff pushing teams who wanted nba ready players -college stats were concerning regarding lack of assists etc. Still think he fell way too far down for having just those few things going against him, but sometimes when teams start obviously passing on talent it gets other GM’s passing as well because they think there must be some reason why the other team passed. I remember Draymond Green having that type of draft experience too. The listed negatives and concerns were there but the real reason he dropped imo was because other teams that should have taken him passed and I think teams were spooked.
Yeah, but his problems spell 6th man and there were worse 6th men taken with the 12th or 13th pick..... 20th is a notch worse. I said it, there is almost no risk to employ him as the 6th man. Regarding Draymond, yeah, Draymond turned out to be a premium defender but he isn't some star, he turned out the best he could but at the end of the day he is not 2 way enough. He blossomed in a situation that supported off ball movement his passing flourished.
The problem is in the NBA, no one wants a Kevin Porter Jr. If Cam's thing is he has to float around to become a decent bench player for a desperate team after screwing a couple teams over, we don't need to be investing time or minutes in that. We should have traded him end of last season when the perception of his future value was higher than being a bench player on the desperate and aproned-out Bucks. If the Bucks had money to spend they would not spend it on him and we don't actually know that he's not beating the **** out of someone's daughter right now. That kind of thing you have to disprove over years, not over a short stint on a team. It's too big a project for a team that is on the way up with a big young core and has lots of future picks. You're right to say it's not uncommon, but as a team we don't need to have our hands dirty with this kind of stuff. We're rich in terms of assets. We made the mistake with KPJ holding on to the hot potato till it burned us. We dumped 3 infinitely more tradeable smaller contracts (ex FRP's) just to not decline KPJ's contract option. This was when we thought we were getting Lopez. That's such a massive swing. We used 3 FRP's, realized we don't like them and then instead of just folding them into trades later we decided it's better to pay even more in 2nd round picks to dump them rather than just let KPJ walk. The team knew more than us at the time that KPJ was a disaster off the court. Stone just kept believing in him for no reason. We kind of couldn't control that we lost Lopez, but it was crazy to not go the route of GETTING a couple of 2nd rounders for our ex-FRP's and declining the KPJ option. This is how it can get our hands dirty. That loss ended up being: minus 3 FRP's and minus multiple second rounders. It could have been: minus 3 FRP's plus multiple second rounders to recoup some value. I hope we've learned our lesson. Right now I don't know why we don't give Cam's minutes to Dante or McVeigh or Landale. I would rather see Landale take those 3's at least he's hardworking and improving his 3PT% has actual value for us whether we keep him or trade him.
