With Cam Thomas’ season over, decision-time awaits for the Brooklyn Nets

Suddenly, Thomas may have played his last game in a Nets uniform, after one of the best weeks of his career. What will it take to keep him in Brooklyn? What should it take?

Cam Thomas had just played the best half of basketball in his professional career. Maybe not his most productive, certainly not the most explosive — but the one that portended best to the future he wants as a ball-dominant offensive creator.

Over the first 24 minutes of the Brooklyn Nets’ March 13 loss to the Chicago Bulls, Thomas shot 4-of-9 to score 15 points, four boards, and a career-high-tying eight assists, going out of way at times to hit the open man…

Though the second half would go similarly to Brooklyn’s previous game against the Cleveland Cavaliers, in which Thomas played a fantastic first half before confining his offensive impact to tough misses down the stretch, these games marked genuine improvement for the fourth-year guard.

Said Head Coach Jordi Fernández: “You saw it in the last two games, especially in the first half [against Chicago]. He had eight assists, and I think in the game against Cleveland his assists were very high too, and the way we played through him, I thought the team was playing at a high level. I think we had over 20 assists in the first half, both times. And we were working him back to being in elite shape, and that’s the Cam Thomas who we want, who we expect.”

Fernández largely pinned Thomas’ second-half downturns on a lack of conditioning, and though 10-of-22 and 8-of-23 shooting lines coinciding with the best passing games of his career isn’t anything to wave away, it was an overwhelmingly positive week in the midwest for Thomas…

And it ended with Thomas pulling his left hamstring, the third time he’s done so in 2024-2025. It was the death blow to his season, after just 25 games played.

With 2021’s #27 overall pick hitting restricted free agency this offseason, he had suddenly, possibly played his final game for the organization that drafted him.

“I feel like I built a lot of great relationships here,” said Thomas on Sunday. “It’s a business at the end of the day. I would love to be back and get that straightened out, just to keep playing in front of the fans and keep building relationships that I built here. I was drafted here, so I definitely have a connection here.”

This is not the first time Thomas has praised the organization that drafted him, and though the above is as a standard response to a standard question, there’s little reason to doubt his sincerity.

He’s joined the chorus of those praising Jordi Fernández this season, and in the past, strongly vouched for General Manager Sean Marks.

“It’s a great relationship,” he said in the summer of 2023. “He’s done a great job of identifying players in certain roles. I feel like he’s one of the best at his job and I’m glad that he’s our GM, honestly. We’re in a good spot, we have a good place to go and a good place to build on for years to come … He’s a great GM.”

In that same podcast appearance, Thomas said he’d average 25 points a night “easy” if he were a full-time starter. Though it took him another full season to snag that role, it seems he wasn’t too far off. In just 25 games played (23 starts), but in just 31.2 minutes a night, thanks to frequent minutes-restriction, Thomas averaged 24.0 points, 3.3 rebounds, and 3.8 assists a night, all career-highs.

This is not yet a deep-dive of his season, but the headlines are:

• Thomas replaced a portion of his mid-range attempts with 3-pointers, and though he shot just 34.9% from deep, taking more of those looks while constantly getting to the line raised his true shooting to 57.5%, closer to league-average…

• He is no longer the league’s least-willing passer by the tracking data, but simply below-average. Making that jump while the turnovers hardly budged is real stuff.
• Per Basketball Index, Thomas had zero “quick-decision” assists, defined as a pass where the ball was in a player’s hand for 0.5 seconds or less. He is one of just a couple rotation regulars in the league to do this in 2024-2025, and though he is a deadly catch-and-shoot option, ball-stopping continues to be a worry.

It feels like Thomas will be a Net in 2025-2026. His steady improvements and relationship with the organization matter here, but so do too Brooklyn’s long-term plans. Given their extreme flexibility entering this offseason, and not-so-secret desire to eventually trade for a star after making a couple early first-round picks, keeping Thomas’ contract on the books may be a no-brainer.

Take Jalen Green, a somewhat similar 2021 draftee (though I maintain Thomas is better) who was rewarded with a 3-year, $105 million contract last offseason. Overpay? Absolutely. But now, his salary figures to be the main trade piece in any star acquisition the Houston Rockets make.

Thomas is highly unlikely to get $35 million a year, and the Nets are further away than the Rockets of last season were, but the principle remains the same. Green is providing a decent scoring punch for a competitive Houston team this season, and has obvious trade value in the near future. Plus, despite some glaring weaknesses in his game, you can’t discount the possibility of rapid improvement turning him into an additive player.

That’s not quite Cam Thomas yet, who is 23 years old, but also a score-first, score-second guard not yet at league-average efficiency. There’s also the matter of, you know, the three hamstring injuries he suffered this season.

Speaking of those, Thomas says he doesn’t feel the need to adjust his training regimen this offseason: “Every time was just routine, nothing out of the ordinary, stuff I’ve been doing my whole life, and moves I’ve been doing. So it’s nothing really to look at, I guess, or feel concerned about. I think it’s just more so, you know, trying to have good luck, I guess. I don’t know. So it’s just tough.”

Much is going to factor into Thomas’ market, from his hamstring injuries to the lack of teams around the NBA with cap space. Brian Lewis of the New York Post reports that his market “could be in the $20 million to $22 million per year range.”

Whatever his market is, one thing is clear, and it always has been: Cam Thomas believes in his talents.

When asked if he sees himself as a long-term core piece of this franchise, he had this to say: “Yeah, of course. When I got major minutes, I feel like I’ve been one of the best guards in the league in my position. I feel like I’ve shown that. So, nothing really to talk about with that. But I feel like, when I do have the minutes in a featured role, the sky’s the limit for me. We’ve seen that these past two years.”

Do the Brooklyn Nets agree? We’re about to find out.