Cam Whitmore BENCHED by Washington Wizards, Why? | Varun Shankar Breaks It Down

Cam Whitmore BENCHED by Washington Wizards, Why? | Varun Shankar Breaks It Down

Cam Whitmore got benched by head coach of the Washington Wizards Brian Keefe in the loss to the Atlanta Hawks. But why? Verun Shunker tells us the answer today. [Music] You are Locked On Wizards, your daily Washington Wizards podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network. Your team every day. DC family, you’re locked on to the Washington Wizards, where you’re part of our family. We thank you for making Lock on Wizards your first listen every single day. We’re part of the Locked On podcast network where it’s your team every day. Today’s episode is brought to you by FanDuel if you want to be right in the middle of the action all season long. Visit fanuel.com and place your NFL live bets this season alongside the DC sports content creating Savannah Abdullah Yub. I’m Ben Strober. cover the Washington Wizards for Roundtable IO and 1067 the fan and today we’re excited to be joined by Verun Shunker of the Washington Post beat reporter now in his second season kind of part of this young core of the Wizards I guess Wizards media has a member of the young core as well uh you can check him out on his social medias at Verun Shunker check him out in the Washington Post and the host of the everybody eats podcast uh Verun I’m perplexed about the commanders I know you are as well how bad this season has gone so can Can I get a temperature check for you about today’s 31- nothing loss? Same to 2026. Well said. Well said, my friend. Yesterday, uh, Washington’s loss to the Atlanta Hawks at home. It got a little bit competitive there in the latter part of the third quarter in the fourth quarter. But one of the bigger storylines from yesterday’s game, Cam Whitmore, a DNP last night. He was questionable with an illness. I thought that might be part of the reason why, but Brian Keefe, he set the record straight. He said, “We have certain standards that we have for a team. He has to live up to those on the better, and he’ll have a chance here, but that’s going to be up to him when that time comes.” Maroon, were you surprised to see Whitmore essentially benched in yesterday’s game based on what you had seen in some previous matchups? I don’t know that I was surprised that he was benched or that his minutes had gone down as much as I had, but I was surprised by the transparency Brian Keefe showed in the postgame press conference being pretty explicit about the reasons for the lack of minutes for Camp Whitmore. I cannot remember a time in my I’ve only been, you know, I’ve covered Brian Keef for one season before this and now a quarter of the way through this one and it stands out to me as probably the only time I’ve heard him say something that strong about a player. And Verun, do you think Wizards fans, because a lot of people going into the season thought Kent Wmore was a guy that’s going to find a home in DC and early on it just didn’t seem like that. And there were some games where he would get five minutes recently and then 18 minutes and then now as of the Hawks game, a DMP. What’s like the stance because it’s a whole roller coaster of emotion when it comes to the camp Whitmore experience experiment because he has a big fan club. There are some people out there thinking that he could be the best player on this roster at the end of the season. It’s I mean Whitmore is a player with undeniable talent. He was a first round pick for this reason. He was a really good player at Villanova and someone who I think people had high expectations for when he came into their draft with Houston. But he has had the same issues throughout his career. I think the two biggest ones that I would point to are shot selection slash his kind of passing vision and then offball defense. And those were issues during his time in Houston. It was one of the reasons that he couldn’t get consistent minutes especially when they shifted from their rebuild to kind of the you know the winning part of their time under Eme Udoka and then when he came to DC those remain questions and they’ve remained things that he needs to work on so far this year. Verun did a really nice breakdown of Cam Whitmore and the the benching that transpired yesterday. Uh you go check out his breakdown of what exactly happened. There’s a little film uh element to that that’s tied into it. just breaking down through that. I know one of the things you highlighted was his transition defense, maybe a lack of effort that we saw on some of those spurts in transition. Have you noticed that as a consistent thing through him for him throughout the season or is that something that’s developed over the last week that you’ve noticed? I think you could see sometimes with Cam just the waning and waxing of his energy during a game. And part of it is just that, you know, he is such a explosive athlete that he doesn’t always get into the, you know, the greatest defensive stance all the time and it doesn’t matter, especially when he’s on the weak side. And you could see that when he’s engaged and when he’s locked in, he is someone who can be a pretty impactful defender, someone who can read passing lanes and pick off passes and get deflections and steals and blocks, but you have to be locked in to do that, and he’s not. Do you think a guy like with his mentality of just, you know, at times you can be into the game and at times you can be just out, you’re not in your head when it comes to being concentrated on the court when this roster is just so young. Verun, do you think that can get to the locker room because this is a Wizard squad that, let’s be honest, are not winning a lot of games as of recently and you want to go out there and be competitive and it’s difficult. And on top of that, you have coach Brian Cape not too long ago against the Boston Celtics after a 45point loss, saying that we took a step back on year three of a rebuild. Like the benching of Camp Whimmore, do you think they can get to the other guys on this roster? I mean, I think that there is a difference when you look at the Wizards between the process and the result. And the team is more focused on the former right now. The results aren’t going to be there this year. That is the reality of a tanking team that needs to protect its pick and wants to finish near the bottom of the standings to do so. The Wizards are playing a massive amount of young players. More than half of their rotation, I think, is players 22 years old or younger. And that’s just not going to lead to winning basketball night after night after night. That’s just not how the NBA is set up. Young players are not good players. But at the same time, you need those young players to develop good habits. That’s where the process comes into it. Maybe you’re not miss making the right shot, but are you making the right play of kicking out when there’s an open player in the corner? Are you rotating properly? Are you where you need to be? Are you when you’re the weak side help defender, are you in your spot early so that if the play does come to you, you’re in position to potentially disrupt it? Are you boxing out? Are you communicating on defense? Are you communicating in transition? These are all things that the Wizards want their young players to focus on, even if it doesn’t translate to short-term results. Right now, you can tolerate poor results if you’re the Wizards. In fact, you welcome poor results at this point in your timeline. You can’t tolerate poor process again and again and again. And that’s I think where we come to with Cam Whitmore where he’s not the only player who makes mistakes on the Wizards. But I do think that if you look at the film, he’s probably near the top when it comes to some of these process related mistakes that we talk about. So, this a really interesting perspective because I think a lot of the fan base was kind of taken back by the comment saying that certain standards weren’t being met. And then if you’re a Wizards fan and you see the product that’s on the floor, you say, “What are the standards?” It’s kind of hard to really see the vision of that. But from what I’m understanding, what you’re saying here, Verun, is the standard isn’t really about the results they’re seeing on the floor. It’s more about the little things it’ll take to get to those results at some point. And it kind of like begs the question because a lot of people will look toward Bub Carrington who’s struggled a lot in his second season here or some of the other guys on this roster and say, “Well, what about him? Why is Bub Carrington still playing in 37 minutes if the minutes are supposed to be earned?” I kind of wanted to ask your thoughts on the whole idea of the Wizards meritocracy in terms of the minutes. Do you think they followed up with it, but maybe in a different way that a lot of fans anticipated that would be the case in terms of people actually earning their minutes? It’s hard to say to be quite honest because I don’t think it’s a true meritocracy when you’re looking at the Wizards rotation in terms of pure results. But if you’re looking at what players are trying to do and how they’re I I think Bub is a great example because Bub is being asked to do different things than he was a year ago and he’s being asked to do new things that are I think we lost Veroon there. Lost Veroon there for a second. We’ll see if he gets back into the studio. But I do understand the point that he’s trying to make here uh about like Bob Carrington, about the other Wizards player. The standard that Brian Keefe is alluding to isn’t necessarily like this guy’s out there giving you a a positive plus minus each and every night. Like he’s not out there making mistakes. I think they know mistakes are going to be part of that process this year, Abdullah. And that’s been a big reason why like the rotations maybe haven’t changed in a way. And it sounds like from an effort standpoint, a lack of energy, that’s where Cam Whitmore has kind of fallen into this hole within the rotation and, you know, kind of maybe buted heads with Keefe at times because, you know, we saw the flash of that earlier in the season where there was that one time out where Kee was very visibly frustrated uh with Cam Whitmore. But from the sense where like you see this team the way it’s trying to progress in this rebuild and you’re not really seeing like results from that on the floor, it is interesting to see how like they’re going to respond to lack of energy or you know lack of better effort from there on out because I think there have been some other guys on this team that have also put a lack of effort in certain situations, but maybe this will kind of be the first domino to fall where you see guys fall out of the rotation for that reason. Abdullah, and yeah, you bring up a good point there. It’s crazy also, Ben, that you you also have to think about the fact that there was no Bal Kulabali out there. Alex Sar is out with the injury. Cory Kisser’s out there with injury. This is a room a wing room with a surplus of guys and you think Ken Whitmore. And I was shocked, man. You and I, we looked, you said, “Hey, Jir Walkan just starting.” And I looked at you and I’m like, “What? You have Ken Whitmore out there and Justin Champany who we’ll get into hopefully later in the episode.” I just I don’t get it. And I wonder, Ben, how what does Cam Whitmore look like going forward? Does this affect him mentally? He’s a young guy. He’s only in his third year in the NBA, 21 years old. And I just like for me, I feel like he wants this uh DC to be his home. He was born and raised a Wizards fan. Something like this again, not fitting the standard, it just like I I don’t know. I I don’t know where I can go from here. And just the whole idea of trusting coach Brian Keefe. And I I love like I don’t want to say love, but I understand that this team the the direction they’re trying to go. They want to secure that draft pick. But it’s just the rotation Benz, the inconsistency lineups with, again, I go back to Justin Champany not starting and then playing 30 plus minutes and getting five minutes and then now Ken Whitmore is a DMP when he’s clearly fully healthy when you don’t have many wings out there to begin with in the game. I I I don’t know. And we’re hoping to get more answers as we go on into the season. Yeah, 100%. I think we’re going to get a lot more answers on stuff like that. As we roll forward throughout the show, we’re going to take our first break. I’m going to pause this because Veron is waiting patiently uh in the waiting room here on StreamYard. We’ll get him back. I want to talk to him about CJ McCullum. Are we seeing too much of him? I’m going to ask that question of when we come back. I’m going to pause it real quick. Nobody knows your money goals better than you. Robin Hood puts you in control of your money with tools that work as hard as you do. 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So, it’s been like an interesting experience, at least for me, Verun, just kind of weighing in on CJ McComem and the experience we’ve seen from him in a Washington Wizards uniform because, you know, a 14-year NBA veteran, he’s been around the block, everybody knows what he’s capable of, what he’s done over the course of his 14-year career, and even the mixed bag results this year with the first couple weeks of the season, uh, didn’t play too well, maybe was getting adjusted, uh, to playing within the Wizard system, and then you see him pop off for two 40 plus point games, another 28-point game against Atlanta the other night. And a lot of Wizards fans will question saying, “Why is CJ McCullum, who’s 34 years old, playing the most minutes on this Wizards team?” So, I want to ask you, do you feel like we’re seeing too much of him based on what the Wizards goals are for individual development this year, or is this all part of the plan for them? I think that McCullum is the player he has always been. This is what CJ McCullum has done for the past five to 10 years of his career. I would say he’s going to take up a decent share of your offense. He’s got like a 24.8% usage rate right now for cleaning the glass. That is the lowest he has had in his career, but it’s around or since the 2018 19 season, but it’s still in line with his career norms. I would say he is in the 65th percentile among combo guards in cleaning the glasses efficiency metric. And here’s the thing about Zall. He doesn’t pass the ball much, but because he doesn’t pass the ball much, he doesn’t turn the ball over much. He’s very good at making sure he’s going to come down and make sure you get a shot. Does that make him the best player to use to help develop younger players? I don’t know. But I do think that he is someone who can help the Wizards offense. If you look, Washington is about 10 points per 100 possessions better when he’s on the court compared to what he’s off. So, he is contributing to the better play that we’ve seen from the Wizards when they have positive moments. I think it’s also helpful for him to carry a heavy burden on offense, if only because it lets players like Keshan George, like Bob Carrington, like Alex Sar a not be the top focus on the scouting report for other teams and b just not have to carry so much of an offensive burden night after night when they’re still trying to figure out where they fit in the league. I don’t think Keshan George at his peak is going to be someone who’s commanding this much offense as he is right now. But he has to because of where the Wizards are in their timeline. But this is having CJ around kind of lightens the load for that. And I do think that if you look at him compared to Jordan Pool last season, P was a little better as a passer than McCullum is, but I don’t think the gap is as big as people think it is. Yeah, it’s kind of funny that you mentioned he doesn’t turn the ball over much. the recent game against Atlanta, he did have six turnovers. So, we’re hoping that that’s an outlier. And like you said, he absolutely is. I he is in the 89th percentile among combo guards in turnover rate. That is something that has been a strength of his throughout his career. He was at 89 percentile this year, 91st of a year before that, 81st a year before that, 61st a year before that. So, like this is a consistent strength of his that again he’s not going to pass the ball much, but he’s going to make sure you get a shot up. and Verum right now as we’ve seen like these 20 games 20 plus games in in CJ McCullum’s career as a wizard his trade value a lot of people are assuming that post trade deadline he will not be on this team do you think they could net a firstrounder for CJ McCullum right now I don’t think that the first rounder they get will be because of McCullum alone but I do think that because he is an expiring salary he had he carries a big number about 30 million so the Wizards will probably need to take in some money to make the deal work for the other team. And if the Wizards take on a multi-year commitment with that salary, that could make the deal enticing enough where they do get a first round pick. Think about what they were able to do last year where they flipped Marvin Bagley and Johnny Davis to the Memphis Grizzlies in exchange for Marcus Smart’s two years left of salary that got them a first round pick that ended up being Will Riley. It was a lottery protected first and Memphis made the playoffs so it didn’t end up mattering. It’s interesting that you talk about the salary dump aspect because obviously I think that’s going to be the number one determinant in how this deal can get done with CJ McComem. Could you see the Wizards maybe bringing in a player on a multi-year deal because of this trade, but actually have them be part of their timeline in some route like as a contributor? Like what if they bring in someone who can actually help them out at the point guard position for the next year or two in a multi-year deal? because we know that the lack of point guard on the roster has been a big hinder to their offensive play this year. Could you see something like that? I mean, sure. Yeah. I mean, I think you look at the McCullum pool deal, that was one that netted them a player who has now become a useful piece in CJ McCollum. The same thing is true with the Chris Middleton deal, right? And so, these are players who have become part of it. I don’t think that you’re going to be getting a wildly positive player uh with the pick or at least a wildly positive player compared to their salary because the Wizards will want to potentially take on bad salary in exchange for getting that first round pick. I don’t know, Verun, can you sense the frustration when it comes down to, for example, that loss against Boston or even Atlanta where CJ McCullum has 20 plus points, Chris Milton contributes, but those are the guys taking a lot of those shots because I always talk about how the fact that it would be a good silver lining that the young guys go out there and give you some efficiency or just even attempt those shots. And I understand you also want to maximize the trade value of those vets. How how difficult is it to balance that of the idea of like maximizing trade value but also also maximizing development for these young guys? I mean, I think it’s a balance, but you know, you see a lot of people online talk about why is why are McCullum and Middleton playing at all, right? And I think it’s tempting when you have a rebuilding team to just see all the young pieces out there. Like it’s very tempting to want to see the Bub Carrington, Trey Johnson, Keshan George Bal, Glali, Alexar lineup, or maybe slot Will Riley at his position, maybe get uh, you know, AJ Johnson in there, right? Young players are not productive NBA players. They are not good NBA players. And when you have all of them out there together, sometimes you’re just playing really, really bad basketball. The Wizards are playing really bad basketball anyway. But I do think that if you take away those veterans, I mean, you saw McCullum’s onoff splits. He’s making the team better. And you talk about the usage or or the the where the share of the offense is going to. When you look at the usage rates, highest on the team is Sar. Second is McCullum. Third is Tristan Vuvich. After that, Keshan George. Then you’ve got Cam Whitmore. Then you’ve got Chris Middleton. And then Trey Johnson is tied with Middleton at 19.1 usage rate. So, it’s not like these guys are taking up like an absurd amount of the offense. They’re taking up like a a reasonable share of the offense. And there’s also like locker room dynamics here. Like CJ McCollum and Chris Middleton are establish NBA players. They are pros pros. You have to give them a certain share of the offense because, you know, they can also see that they’re better than a lot of the players that the Wizards are running out there right now. And so you got to make sure that you’re not entirely taking away from the idea of meritocracy when it comes to the offensive breakdown. I get that. And I think you bring up some good points about just the idea of how established these guys in their career and maybe how these young players have a lot of like respect for these players and what they bring to the table and they understand in these situations that sometimes they’re going to go out there and get these or get theirs and that’s just kind of part of the situation. One player that you brought up a couple minutes ago, Verun, was Will Riley. Two career highs in the past week for him since you’ve seen him crack the rotation a little bit more uh due to all the attrition the Wizards have had in recent weeks. What have you made of the extended minutes you’ve seen from him? I like a lot of what I’ve seen with Will Riley with the caveat that it’s still really early and the thing that has impressed me most about him is his ability to string moves together as an offensive player. And I would like to see more of him playing within the team context. This was something that I had questions about him coming out of the draft uh with Illinois where you could see that he was a pretty effective one-on-one player, but how does he contribute to the rest of the offense? He reads the game pretty well and I’m interested to see how his offball play develops as a year goes on. All right, let’s take our second break. When we come back, final segment here with our guy Verun Shunker of the Washington Post. Just want to get a quick update about the Washington Wizards and all the injuries, how it’s affected them this past week. NFL Sundays move fast. One big play and suddenly everything feels different. That’s what makes live betting with FanDuel so exciting. 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But for this current Wizard squad, Verun, Trey Johnson, we still don’t have an update on him. A guy that I want to ask you about and obviously he’s injured right now. Cory Kiss Verun, what’s his future like? I know his trade value has been up as of recently with those 20 point plus performances in those games. How would you assess his future in DC? Because he also is on a friendly contract. I love Corey Kisspert. Cory Kisspert is, I think, one of the most underrated players on the Wizards. He is someone who has some weaknesses, but has consistently made himself better. He is not just a shooter. He can put the ball on the floor. He’s a physical finisher. I think he would be an extremely valuable piece for a playoff team, uh, if the Wizards do choose to move him. But I think he’s also someone that you like having around. He’s a very good complimentary player that can fit in no matter what lineups you put around him. And spacing is a valuable skill. Spacing with a decent amount of size of the wing is extremely valuable skill and it’s something that allows him to play with a lot of different players and make all of them better. I think he might have the highest onoff splits on the team right now. I wanted to ask about the Alex Sar injury and how that’s affected Washington defensively. And not to say like you’re taking such a major step back having Marvin Bagley slot in as your starting center because I think off the bench he’s actually been a really nice piece that Washington picked up in free agent these pa uh this past season. I liked what he’s done. Tristan Bukovich he’s given you a little bit offensively. The defense is still a work in progress. How badly are they missing SAR is that anchor defensively especially in the last week? A lot. I mean, the Wizards defense allows about 7.5 points per pos points per 100 possessions less when Sar is on the court compared to when he’s off. And there are cascading effects downstream because he is someone who protects the rim and is becoming one of the better rim protectors in the league. The Wizards give up a lot of shots at the rim and so you need to have someone out back there to clean it up and Sar has cleaned it up and even if the defensive results don’t look very good, they have looked a lot worse without Sar. think you could see that he is covering up for a lot of mistakes that are happening in front of him. Yeah, I think Alex Run a great sophomore year. I mean, you can’t really ask for it. How it started last season, even before the regular season, the summer league, a lot of people were just so skeptical about him and just offensively the shot diet. You love to see it. I want to ask you, Verun, with the injuries in general, who do you do you expect Jir Watkins and Will Riley to get more minutes? And obviously with the whole camp Whimmore situation, we’ll have to see how that pans out. How would you assess the rotations going forward? Cam will definitely re-enter the rotation at some point. Keith said so and he’s going to get another chance. What he does with that chance is ultimately up to him. Obviously, I think you’ll see some time for Jamir Watkins. I think you’ll see more time for Will Riley. I think that you’ll probably see Watkins play a little bit more with the G-League just because he’s still on that two-way. I am very curious to see what happens with AJ Johnson as the year goes along. I was pretty surprised that he didn’t get many minutes yesterday, especially with all the injuries the Wizards had. And yeah, I mean, you’re going to start getting some of these back guys back somewhat soon, I would say. I don’t have exact timelines, but you got, you know, almost a week gap between yesterday’s game and then Friday’s against the Cavaliers. Wouldn’t surprise me if Sar returned by then. Maybe Trey Johnson. That one’s a little bit more questionable, but some of the other guys are probably a little further away. I wanted to bring up Trey Johnson with you because in the 15 games we saw him play, averaging around five three-point attempts per game. The way they were using him offensively was a lot different than I expected. And I know now they said that he was playing with this hip injury that kind of been plaguing him since his freshman season at Texas. It seemed like it was a lot of let’s see what Trey Johnson can do with the basketball in his hands. Let’s see if he can get to his spot. And at times he was successful doing it. At times he struggled. when he comes back and you anticipate that he’d be fully healthy when he comes back from recovering from the hip flexor thing. Do you feel like they’ll start to facilitate the offense around him a little bit more kind of the way Charlotte does with Khan Canipple? It’s hard to say. I am curious. The way that Johnson was used before his injury was interesting because in my head he seemed like someone you would use similar to how they use Kisper, running off pin downs, running off stagger actions, getting him shots and weaponizing his shooting as a way to open things up for other players. They didn’t do that as much. Ben, now here’s a caveat. Some of what the Wizards do is set plays, but the majority of their offensive sets are read and react systems where their principles where you recognize something and you move based off of it rather than Keith drawing up a play on the play on the play sheet. That’s a way that a lot of offenses have shifted, I think, more in the NBA. You’re seeing less set uh schemes for teams and more just principles that they work through. I wonder how much of Johnson’s usage is where the coaching staff wants to put in and then how much of it is how much he is acclimated to the offense and has an understanding of where he needs to be and is able to read those principles in real time. Yeah. And because this is the first time, sorry I didn’t mean to cut you off, but this is one of the first times in his life where he’s played off the ball. He played a lot on ball at Texas, same in high school. And so this is a different kind of role for him playing off ball, coming off the bench. This is all new stuff. He was he was doing everything at Texas. Let’s be for real. Veruin, I want to ask you just post trade deadline. We saw last season there were a lot of moves during that spurt. How would you describe and like what do you think? Do you think this Wizard team is going to look different after the deadline? Yeah, I think you’ll probably see someone get moved. I don’t think you’ll see both McCollum and Middleton get moved. My guess right now is that McCollum probably has a little bit more trade value if you canvas the league. I still don’t know how much value that is. Small scoring guards are not exactly the most valuable archetype, but he shoots the ball really well and that’s something you can’t take for granted. Down the down the roster, I’m not sure who else could get moved. I think Marvin Bagley and Johnny Davis were surprises to get moved last year, but that’s also based on the deals the Wizards had coming in. So, it’s still pretty up in the air. We’re still, you know, a little bit away from the deadline. Before we get out of here, Verun, I’m going to break a big journalism practice rule that, you know, that I know from Mel College. you know, us two Melum, I should know better than this, but I’m going to ask you two questions at once. Um, okay. What one one the concerns with Bal Kulabali, who’s now injured, he’s missed over 10 games this season. How concerned are you going forward about him and his availability and what we’ve seen from him offensively? Uh, and then finally, before you get out of here, just give us maybe the top name that you’ve been watching in college basketball who you think would fit best with the Wizards next season in the after the draft. I’ll start with the college answer because I honestly haven’t watched that much college. We’re going to get to that later in the season. Yeah, Peterson looks excellent and I think that what he brings as far as a lead guard who plays a lot with the ball in his hands, can get to the rim, can shoot the three. I think that’s something that really fits what the Wizards need. They need an a 1A to complement some of the players that they have on this roster. With Kouli, I’m not as concerned with the injuries as far as a question of his availability moving forward because a lot of these have been contact injuries. If you think about this one, he gets kind of like tangled up with VJ Edgecom as he’s rising for a jump shot. The one in the summer in Euro basket, his jersey got tangled with someone before that. I think he got undercut uh in Toronto and that’s what led to one of the injuries. And so a lot of these are contactbased injuries rather than, you know, soft tissue ones. And so that gives me a little bit of little bit less apprehension, but I am concerned as far as this is a player who needs development. This is a player who came into the NBA extremely raw and remains so. He’s still extremely young and he needs minutes. He needs development to continue and get better at his game. And you’re seeing some of the flashes, but you’re not seeing enough. And part of that, I think, is he hasn’t been able to get that much of a rhythm. One of the groupings I’m so excited to see as the season goes on is Alex Sar, Keshan, George, Bal, Kulabali playing together. We haven’t gotten to see that grouping that much this year and it’s one that I would like to see Kulabali get more consistent minutes and he’s going to have a big role whenever he’s healthy, but how he adjusts to his shooting, how his shooting improvements or lack thereof could impact his offensive game. These are all still open questions and he needs to play before he can answer them and the Wizards can answer them and we can have any idea of answering them. Yeah, I think Bal, we all think he’s a stud defensively. We saw what he did with Giannis and how that game ended. And it’s kind of crazy, guys. If you really think about it, if you lose to the Wizards, you just panic. Look at the Mavs. They were panicking. Our guy Nick Angsten and locked out Mavs was panicking after they lost to the Whiz. And the second game, Milwaukee, they just Giannis is like, “Yo, I’m done with Milwaukee.” The Atlanta game, I mean, that’s just they just lost. And it is what it is. But I know we’re going to head on out here. I just want to say everyone, I never told you this, but I love your profile picture on X. Bugs Bunny. The most the most underrated cartoon character of all time. Absolutely. Listen, I have a bunch of Bugs Bunny uh pro like pictures just like hard pictures that he has basically. And I’m going to cycle through them as the season goes on. But, you know, let’s try to switch it up a little bit. Well, if you want to see this profile picture that AB brought up, you can check Verun out on XB by Verun Shunker. Uh, I know he’s big in the Reddit community as well, which I’ve started to tap into as well. I got everywhere. Byron Chucker everywhere. All right. So, check him out on every single social media. Check out his podcast, the Everybody Eats podcast. I’ll link that down below. Uh, and be sure to go check out his work in the Washington Post. One of the best to do it. Verun, thank you so much for joining us tonight. Appreciate you guys having me on. No problem, my friend. All right, that’s going to do it for us here today on Lockdown Wizards. Thank you for making Lockdown Wizards your first listen every single day. For your second, check out the lockdown NBA fantasy basketball podcast. Josh Lloyd, you’ll get your fantasy lineup right. Alongside my co-host Abdullah Aub, I’m Ben Sherberc Family. We’ll talk to you tomorrow.

In this episode of Locked on Wizards, hosts Ben Strober and Abdullah Ayubi are joined by Washington Post Wizards beat reporter Varun Shankar to break down the team’s latest developments. The trio dives deep into Cam Whitmore’s recent benching by head coach Brian Keefe—unpacking the reasoning behind it, the standards being set for young players, and the importance of process over results for a rebuilding team. They also analyze CJ McCollum’s role and playing time, discuss trade value scenarios for Wizards veterans as the deadline approaches, and give updates on the team’s injury situation, including Alex Sarr and Bilal Coulibaly. Plus, Varun Shankar shares his outlook on Wizards’ young prospects and touches on what to watch for as the second half of the season unfolds.

Varun on Twitter: https://x.com/ByVarunShankar
Varun’s Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@UCRSR-9oSZgpG0INOxCvlW7Q

Timestamps:

00:00 – Intro and setting up the discussion on Cam Whitmore’s benching
02:10 – Varun Shankar on Brian Keefe’s transparency and expectations for Whitmore
03:09 – Whitmore’s talent, issues, and development so far
04:01 – Examining Whitmore’s transition defense and energy
05:23 – The Wizards’ focus on process over results during the rebuild
06:54 – What are the Wizards’ standards, and how are minutes being earned?
09:29 – The impact of injuries and rotation inconsistencies
12:09 – Deep dive: CJ McCollum’s role, usage, and impact on the team
14:49 – McCollum’s trade value and potential deadline scenarios
16:10 – Salary dump prospects and adding players on multi-year deals
18:49 – Balancing vet trade value with young player development
19:32 – Spotlight: Will Riley’s growth and playmaking ability
21:25 – Injury updates: Trey Johnson, Corey Kispert, Alex Sarr
22:31 – Sarr’s impact on defense and missing his presence
23:58 – Future rotations: opportunities for Jameer Watkins, Will Riley, and Cam Whitmore
24:45 – What the return of Trey Johnson could mean for the offense
26:42 – Projecting post-deadline roster changes
27:42 – Concerns and outlook for Bilal Koulibaly
28:01 – Quick look ahead to potential draft targets and closing remarks

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