In an unsurprising ripple effect of the five-team mega trade that principally moved wing Peyton Watson from the Denver Nuggets to the Cleveland Cavaliers, Michael Scotto of HoopsHype reported on Friday that the Cavaliers waived forward Cam Whitmore, who was also acquired in the five-team trade headlined by Watson.
The Cleveland Cavaliers have waived Cam Whitmore, league sources told @hoopshype. Whitmore, the 20th pick of the 2023 NBA Draft, has averaged 10.5 points on 45% from the field and 35% from 3-point range in 17.3 minutes during three NBA seasons with the Rockets and Wizards. pic.twitter.com/y4FZJjhbhK
— Michael Scotto (@MikeAScotto) August 28, 2026
Cam Whitmore is 6’6” and 230 pounds. Whitmore is 22 years old and has three seasons of NBA experience. Young players with experience are exactly who the Chicago Bulls should be looking for, right?
Not really.
Objectively, every single NBA player is exceptionally talented and would fry any civilian basketball player in a pickup game.
In the specific context of NBA talent evaluation and roster building, especially a rebuilding roster such as the Chicago Bulls, a young NBA player is not an immediate qualification for acquiring said player, even on cheaper deal structures such as an NBA veteran’s minimum or two-way contract.
There should be a sliver of an upside trend in eye test or analytically derived data points that suggests there is value to realize by signing a rookie contract player who hits free agency before the end of their first NBA contract.
Specific to Whitmore, he doesn’t possess an “undervalued player” thesis to justify the Bulls giving him a roster spot on the premise of reaping some abstract future upside value.
Whitmore’s pre-draft NBA profile was prescient
Whitmore was drafted into the NBA with medical concerns that were not publicly disclosed, according to The Athletic’s Sam Vecenie, who reacted to Whitmore being selected 20th overall in the 2023 NBA Draft on his Game Theory Podcast feature guest, Adam Spinella.
Also noteworthy in Vecenie and Spinella’s reaction conversation to Cam Whitmore’s NBA Draft selection by the Rockets were the explicit development areas Spinella cited in Whitmore’s game: decision-making speed off the catch, avoiding tunnel vision [presumably on the ball], mid-range pull-up scoring, and off-ball defense.
At the time of Vecenie and Spinella’s podcast conversation, Spinella was known for his writing and podcasting on his NBA-draft-focused platform, The Box and One. As of October 2023, Spinella is a scout for the Philadelphia 76ers, according to Spinella’s LinkedIn profile.
Whitmore’s NBA career is unfortunate yet real
In Cam Whitmore’s three NBA seasons, he has dealt with injury and availability issues that have cost him game reps: 12 games due to a combination of knee and ankle injuries during his 2023-24 rookie NBA season and 56 games during the 2025-26 NBA season with the Washington Wizards due to a Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT) diagnosis.
Despite his injury history, Whitmore was given ample opportunity as a rookie to compete for a long-term rotational role on a young 2023-24 Houston Rockets team in which the majority of the roster had less than five seasons of NBA experience.
In his rookie NBA regular season, Whitmore appeared in 47 games, posting a 27% usage rate for the season, while also averaging 18.7 minutes per game, according to Basketball Reference. In his second NBA season, the 2024-25 season, Whitmore’s minutes decreased slightly to 16.2 minutes per game, with no impactful improvement in any facet of his game.
By the 2025 NBA offseason, Whitmore became an expendable player as he was shipped to the Washington Wizards as the Rockets moved into win-now mode via their busy offseason headlined by acquiring two-time NBA champion forward Kevin Durant.
In his three-year NBA career, Cam Whitmore holds a -0.4 Box Plus/Minus (BPM) according to Basketball-Reference.
At best, Whitmore’s career ceiling is likely a sixth-man-tier player, and that isn’t the role the Bulls need to prioritize at this stage of their rebuild. Instead, the Bulls' priorities are clear: build the best roster possible around Caleb Wilson to fuel his ascent to NBA superstar status.
Add us as a preferred source on Google