Rockets pull Cam Whitmore from Summer League after rough performance

The NBA's Summer League is not designed for your favorite player.

Unless your favorite player is a fringe NBA player. Perhaps you've got a personal connection to someone. Otherwise, you likely support someone whose profile is too large for Summer League.

This is the time of year for guys on two-way contracts to prove their worth. By contrast, players like Cam Whitmore of the Houston Rockets have already solidified their NBA opportunity.

That must be why the team chose to shut him down for the summer.

Houston Rockets pull Cam Whitmore from Summer League

That's not to say there isn't a level of disappointment here.

Whitmore is nothing if not entertaining. We'll miss his thunderous dunks and wild forrays into the teeth of the defense.

Still, pulling him makes sense. Whitmore doesn't need to prove anything at the Summer League level. He needs to prove himself among the big boys during the 2024-25 NBA regular season.

Did he prove anything during Summer League?

Is Houston Rockets' Cam Whitmore too good for Summer League?

How can we put this politely...

No.

Let's look at Whitmore's stats during Summer League. Across three games, he averaged 16.7 points per game while shooting 38.3% from the field and 7.1% from deep. That isn't a typo: Whitmore shot 7.1% from long-range on 4.7 three-point attempts per game.

Whitmore's last game didn't help his statistical profile. Whitmore went for 5 points on 1/15 shooting from the field, and 0/5 shooting from distance.

Should Rockets fans be concerned?

Houston Rockets' Cam Whitmore still has star potential

Not at all.

This is a three-game sample size. That's virtually nothing. Rockets fans should still be putting stock in the potential Whitmore flashed during the 2023-24 season.

If Summer League showed us anything, it showed us that pre-existing concerns about Whitmore persist. His tunnel vision was on full display. Whitmore will need to learn to play within the flow of the offense, but we already knew that. Summer League didn't teach us anything about Whitmore:

It wasn't the right place for him in the first place.