Now that the NBA trade deadline has passed, contenders in the Eastern and Western Conferences have turned their focus to the buyout market to make roster improvements. One of the top names available is guard Cam Thomas, whose free-agent market already appears to be taking quite a turn.
According to NBA insider Jake Fischer, there appears to be minimal interest in Thomas. The only team he heard that had any interest in adding Thomas was the Milwaukee Bucks, but they didn’t want to give up any draft capital for him. Even now that Thomas is available on the open market, he hasn’t heard of teams with any real interest.
It is a dramatic fall-off for Thomas. Just last season, he ranked 16th in scoring (24 PPG) and shot 43.8 percent from the field while making a career-high 2.7 three-pointers per game. The former first-round pick seemed to be hitting the open market at the perfect time, but he found a barren market as a restricted free agent.
This ultimately left him with no choice but to sign a one-year qualifying offer with Brooklyn worth $6 million, coming two months after the club acquired Michael Porter Jr.
Over time, Thomas became an afterthought in Brooklyn. Porter Jr. has ascended to become the team’s leading scorer, proving far more efficient and well-rounded than his teammate was the previous year. Meanwhile, Thomas fell out of the Nets lineup and shot just 39.9 percent from the field in 24 games.
As both NBA free agency and the trade market have shown, there is not much of a market for undersized guards whose only positive contribution is scoring. Given that Thomas’ efficiency as a scorer has also plummeted and he has a reputation for not playing within the flow of the offense, the lack of interest in him is not all that surprising.
