Cam Thomas Took a Raw Deal
Cam Thomas is betting on himself, but will the Nets bet on him?
I’ve never been a huge Cam Thomas fan, but I never expected to be a bigger fan of him than his current employer, the Brooklyn Nets. Thomas, a restricted free agent, just signed a one-year, $5.99 million qualifying offer. By becoming just the fifth player to sign the qualifying offer since 2017, he’ll become an unrestricted free agent in the summer of 2026 and gain a de facto no-trade clause. While restricted free agency almost always hurts a player’s market, Thomas, if reports are to be believed, eschewed more lucrative offers from the Nets just to take full control of his career.
According to reports, the Nets offered Thomas two different contracts: a two-year, $30 million deal with a second-year team option, and a one-year, $9.5 million contract with incentives up to $11 million, but with language that would waive the no-trade clause he would have as a means to preserve his Bird rights. It doesn’t take a math genius to calculate that Thomas, even on a one-year deal, left a lot of money on the table, which raises the question: What the hell is he thinking?
The easy answer is that Thomas believes he can get far more money as an unrestricted free agent in 2026, and there’s some merit to that, but it isn’t as straightforward as you would think. This past summer, few teams had cap space to begin with, and the league’s muted financial projections almost certainly scared off some activity, especially long-term commitments. However, next offseason, there appears (with a massive emphasis on appears) to be far more cap space.
Since the 2026-27 salary cap is projected to come in around $165 million, there’s a good chance that free agency will be far more lively. However, I would always caution players, agents, teams, and fans not to make assumptions based on cap space eight months out.
Take the Chicago Bulls as an example. While they’re projected to have almost $100 million in cap space, that’s with only eight players under contract. Josh Giddey, another unsigned restricted free agent, is likely to eat between $20 to $30 million of that figure. Then there is Coby White, who is in the final year of his current deal and could also land over $20 million per season. Suddenly, $100 million in space is cut in half and given to two ball handlers. Chicago could wiff on those two, but there’s a strong likelihood they take themselves out of the Cam Thomas sweepstakes before it even begins.
Just below the Bulls are the Wizards and Jazz. As two teams in the middle stages of a rebuild, they’re the two most likely suitors for a player like Thomas, but their interest will almost certainly be situational. If either lands a guard high in the 2026 draft, a distinct possibility, and/or if they use their 2026-27 cap space to take on other teams’ bad money for picks, then suddenly committing a ton of money to Thomas goes out the window, or at the very least becomes far less appealing. And this is where things get dicey for Thomas.
After the Wizards and Jazz, there probably won’t be much interest in his services at a figure that would make up for his lost earnings. The Lakers have Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves, the Nets clearly aren’t huge fans, Portland will have Damian Lillard, Scoot Henderson, Jrue Holiday, and Shaedon Sharpe, Detroit has Cade Cunningham and likely Jaden Ivey, the Rockets won’t actually have cap space after they extend everybody, Atlanta has Trae Young, Miami has Tyler Herro, Milwaukee has $23 million in dead money, Chalotte already has a bunch of young guards who love to shoot, and San Antonio has De’Aaron Fox, Stephon Castle, and now Dylan Harper. If the stars align, Thomas could secure the type of deal he desires, but it’s not a given that the money and interest will be there. Then there’s the issue of proving he’s worth that type of deal.
Due to injury, Thomas only played in 25 games last season, but it’s hard to argue with his production. He averaged 24.0 points and 3.8 assists per game on league-average efficiency, and established himself as a legitimate three-level scorer. In fact, the Nets’ lack of interest is even more perplexing when you look at his career arc. Thomas has managed to increase his usage, scoring, assist percentage, and efficiency nearly every season.
Outside of a one-season dip in true shooting percentage (TS%) when he went from a part-time player to a starter, Thomas has an incredible track record of improvement. I cannot stress how rare it is for a player to increase their offensive load while improving their efficiency. When you factor in his age, it’s baffling that the Nets did everything in their power to let him know that they don’t want him. Now, Thomas isn’t a perfect player– the Nets aren’t insane, and there’s a reason no one even presented him with an offer sheet– and it’s his warts that have scared off suitors.
Scoring might be the thing casual fans and low-level but high-profile analysts (cough…Stephen A….cough) care about most, but it is but one part of basketball. Thomas’ passing did improve markedly this past season, but his assist percentage of 22.9%, had he played enough to qualify, would have been the third lowest among players who posted a greater than 30% usage, only above Victor Wembanyama and Anthony Davis, two of the league’s best defensive players and centers. He also averaged 4.0 turnovers per 100 possessions against only 6.0 assists. Among the 27 qualified players to average 4.0 or more turnovers per 100 possessions, his 6.0 assists would have been the second lowest, behind Kevin Durant, one of the most efficient scorers in the league. If you have the ball as much as Thomas, you flatly need to be better at offense for teams to be interested. Then there is the other side of the ball.
Have you heard of defense? Because there’s a chance Thomas hasn’t. It isn’t a secret that he is routinely considered one of the worst defenders in the league. He’s inattentive, a charitable way of describing uninterested, on that end, and hasn’t shown any signs of improvement. In fact, he posted his lowest steals and blocks per 36 minutes of his career this past season. Could he theoretically be a redeemable defender? Absolutely, but teams don’t pay guys tens of millions of dollars hoping they’ll suddenly try.
What’s unfortunate is that Thomas’s complete lack of interest in everything but scoring makes his scoring that much less special. It’s legitimately remarkable that he mixed a 32% usage with a TS% of 57.5%; that’s the same TS% as Donovan Mitchell, just with a higher usage, but that level of bucket-getting on its own doesn’t make you a star. If he took care of the ball, defended, or passed a bit better, he’d be one of the brighter young players in the league, but he doesn’t, and he’s paying the price for it.
The Nets and the league’s total lack of interest in Cam Thomas isn’t a one-off either, and should be viewed as the proverbial nail in the coffin for the score-only guard. For years, if you could fill up the basket, teams would fill up your bank account. The correlation between points and dollars remains strong, but it is clearly waning. Just this offseason, Collin Sexton and Norman Powell were traded for virtually nothing. That’s with Powell coming off a season where he averaged 21.8 points per game on a TS% 7% above the league average, and Sexton, who was no slouch either, averaged 18.4 points per game on a TS% 3% above the league average. Scoring is great, but you’ve got to bring something else to the table to be a desirable player.
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Cam Thomas got a raw deal. Scoring might not be as in-demand as before, but it’s still the single most valuable skill in the sport. He not only has proven to be a valuable volume scorer but has coupled that with a consistent upward trajectory. It’s not crazy to think he could and should get better, and if he does, suddenly his deficiencies become far less of an issue. Thomas doesn’t deserve a max contract, but based on his offers from the Nets, it’s clear they don’t even think he deserves the mid-level exception.
Despite all of my optimism, it’s possible Thomas missed the forest for the trees by accepting the qualifying offer. He is now in a position where he has one season to prove that he’s worth the contract he wants, but he has also completely nuked any motivation from the Nets to give him a real platform. Why should the Nets, who will be desperately tanking from the jump, give Thomas 30 shots a night when he won’t be there long term, after they just drafted three point guards in the first round?
While the de facto no-trade clause he now has gives him some control over his career, it also means the Nets can’t even move him for the best offer, which means there is much less incentivize for the Nets to feature him prominently. At the end of the day, the preservation of bird rights doesn’t mean much if no one wants to pay you in the first place. Somehow, Thomas boxed himself into a situation where he got the least amount of money from the Nets, while also creating a situation where they have the least amount of incentive to play him. He’s in a platform year without any guarantee of a platform, which sounds an awful lot like walking off a plank.
Now, if Thomas can stay healthy and approximate the season he just had, he’ll have real offers, but he has inadvertently created a situation where the Nets have zero reason to let that happen. However, there’s still a decent likelihood that this decision ends with Thomas getting what he wants. He needs to play well, and that would be a disaster for the Nets. They control their first-round pick in 2026, but not in 2027, so they really have to make this season count and be abjectly awful. If he helps them even remotely approach acceptable levels of basketball, they’ll have to work with him on a trade.
Perhaps this is the gambit he and his representation are making, that he’ll be good enough that the Nets will be forced to trade him, and he’ll then have the ability to land on a team where he’ll actually be featured. It’s kind of an insane angle to take when $30 million is on the table, but outsized confidence is kind of Cam Thomas’ brand. Regardless of whether there are plans within plans, I’m rooting for Thomas to have a monster year. When life gives you a raw deal, make a roll.
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