‘Chip on my shoulder’: Rockets draft a highly motivated Cam Whitmore

For a young athlete, being drafted into any professional league can be exciting and stressful, especially when he or she is expected to be a high-draft pick and has family and friends in attendance. There’s also most of the sports world watching on television.

Put yourself in their shoes. For months, you’ve likely read or heard numerous draft analysts speak of you as if no team can do without your talent on their team, and they should move mountains to make you one of the faces of their franchise for the next decade.

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At the 2005 NFL draft, Aaron Rodgers heard all the chatter on how the San Francisco 49ers would make him their future quarterback. He arrived and sat in the green room, expecting to hear his name called expeditiously. It was not, and he sat in misery for hours before the Green Bay Packers selected him at No. 24.

“It’s not so funny when you’re the last one in the green room,” Rodgers would say about his experience.

In 2018, Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson suffered the same fate. The Heisman Trophy winner out of Louisville sat with his mother, waiting to hear his name called as the cameras continuously panned to him after every name was called. It wasn’t until Baltimore decided to trade back into the first round that Jackson’s fate would be sealed, as he was selected with the last pick of the night.

Cam Whitmore is too young to remember those two instances, but the experience he had on Thursday during the 2023 NBA draft strongly resembles what Rodgers and Jackson had to endure.

Whitmore, 18, was slated to be a lottery selection after a star-studded freshman season at Villanova, where he was named 2023 Big East Freshman of the Year. Some projected him to go as high as No. 4 overall by the Rockets and no lower than No. 8 by Washington.

He didn’t hear his name called at four. Then, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver didn’t say his name when it was time for the Wizards to pick. It wasn’t until Houston selected him at No. 20 that Whitmore could relax. He did for a brief moment until reality hit him that 17 teams had passed over him as part of the draft process.

That relaxation soon turned into motivation, which could be seen in his eyes during his numerous interviews with reporters. Whitmore was told that his slide was due to some concerns about his medicals which he quickly disputed when he was asked about it.

“No, I promise you there’s not,” Whitmore said when asked if he had any medical issues that would make NBA teams hesitant to draft him. “I don’t know what happened. But I feel fine.”

Rockets general manager Rafael Stone echoed Whitmore’s statement.

“We don’t,” Stone said when asked if Houston has any concerns over Whitmore’s health. “Cam took a physical in Chicago [at the draft combine], and every team had access to it; our doctors had access to it. We were very comfortable with it. I think he is well-positioned to have a really good career. We are really excited to have him.”

Stone also believes that the draft-night slip will play a small part in Whitmore’s career, and it will be in the back of his mind when he takes the floor each game.

“I am sure it is a little bit of added motivation,” Stone told reporters during his post-draft press conference. “But today should not be a bad day for him, as his dream just came true. Even if it came true in a slightly different form than maybe he hoped or anticipated.”

“Where you get picked has zero determination on how successful you are. So now it is entirely on him to become the player I know he can be and that he knows he can be.”

If history repeats itself, perhaps Whitmore’s career will follow in the steps of Jackson, who was selected as the NFL’s Most Valuable Player (MVP) in 2019 and remains Baltimore’s starter. Or perhaps it can mirror Rodgers, who has four MVP trophies and a Super Bowl ring over a career that continues today with the New York Jets.

What the Rockets are getting in the 6-foot-7, 232-pound physical specimen is a player who now has a chip on his shoulder and will be more motivated to prove to everyone who passed him up.

“It motivates me to like 150 percent,” Whitmore told reporters after he was drafted. “It’s just something where I’ve got to rethink, go in the next day, new mind, free mind. Coming into that organization with a chip on my shoulder, have a lot of motivation on my mind.”