Trading rating, ESPN gives Rockets C+ evaluation, Wizards get Whitmore reaches A-

Since the rumors of the Rockets wanting to trade Durant, Whitmore, the young man selected by the Rockets in the 20th pick in the first round of 23 years, has been involved in trading rumors. However, in the end, he failed to become part of the Durant trade. The Rockets found a better destination for him and sent Whitmore to his hometown team, the Washington Wizards, with only two second rounds of reward.

Recently, ESPN also gave the transaction ratings of the two teams for this operation, but the result was not recognized by everyone. In the transaction rating, the media's evaluation of the Washington Wizards is A-, and the specific transaction rating is as follows:

For the Wizards, this is undoubtedly a good opportunity for Taobao to get stars. Whitmore has performed very efficiently in the past two seasons, which has made it possible for him to become the main force of the team in the future or to develop to a higher level.

Whitmore, who was in the rookie season, averaged 23.7 points per game if converted into 36 minutes of playing time, while this figure dropped to 20.8 minutes last season. Even so, the explosiveness of scoring can still rank first in the current Wizards' lineup (Jordan Poole, who was ranked first in the previous ranking, has been traded). At the same time, on the defensive end, just from the data, the total number of Whitmore blocks + steals every 36 minutes is also close to 2 times. Although he has played for two seasons, Whitmore is only 21 years old (born on July 8, 2004), which is about 2 years younger than 2025 rookies such as Coward and Clifford. Although the Wizards currently have nine first-round players in the draft in the past three years, Whitmore's talent on the offensive end is still among the top three.

Compared with the rookies that teams such as Saar and Kulibaly were lucky enough to get after a year of "showing badly", the Wizards' price for getting Whitmore was particularly low, just two future second-round draft picks. In the new season, Whitmore needs to compete with players such as Middleton, Smart, Coolibarley, Jones, George, and Keithport. Among them, in addition to Coolibarley's relatively stable position, Whitmore has a very good chance to get another starting position.

Out of his potential, athleticism and explosive scoring power, the Wizards will definitely not waste a lot of their time on veterans. Even in the Rockets last season, Whitmore averaged more than 10 minutes of playing time, while the Rockets ranked second in the Western Conference in the regular season, and the team's young talents overflowed. Obviously, the competitive environment is much more intense than the Wizards today.

So this time Whitmore's joining the Wizards can be regarded as a new start. In the more familiar hometown team, he has a more relaxed growth environment. Perhaps his path to becoming a star has the right time and place, and only people are left.

It seems too harsh to give the Rockets a C+ rating. After the team signed Finney Smith and got Durant in the trade, Whitmore was already at the end of the team rotation. Whitmore, who had already complained about playing time issues last season, would definitely not be able to withstand the reduction in his own role again. Even if the Rockets keep him, Whitmore is likely to feel as frustrated as he was on the court at the beginning of last season.

Instead of letting this young man who is no longer interested in playing for the Rockets occupy the space on the field, he simply traded it out to exchange for two future second-round draft picks, while also reducing the team's total salary, giving the Rockets a certain amount of room for operation in the subsequent buyout market.

The reason why the Rockets think that the Rockets have a low rating is more because they have too high expectations for Whitmore. After all, a rookie who averaged less than 20 minutes of playing time per game in the season, many people believed from the very beginning that Whitmore would become a big helper for the Rockets' re-emergence, rather than changing back to the chips of two second-round draft picks a year later.

However, for teams under reconstruction, many rookies were abandoned by the team in the first two years, such as Garuba, TOEFL, Taitai and others before the Rockets. After all, Whitmore also brought some future assets to the team. The C+ level evaluation is indeed too low, or the B-level evaluation is more accurate. What rating do you think the Rockets' trade on Whitmore can get? Welcome to like, follow, leave a message to discuss!