Brooklyn may not have answers to looming Cam Thomas free agency

As if the Cam Thomas free agency discussion wasn’t tricky enough...

Following his third hamstring injury this year (the latest sustained during the team’s Mar. 15 matchup against Chicago), Thomas has been ruled out for the remainder of the Brooklyn Nets’ 2024-25 season. Now, all that’s left for the organization and this budding guard is a question-ridden restricted free agency period.

While Thomas has served as the group's leading scorer with 24 points per game, alongside 3.8 assists and 3.3 rebounds, durability has become a significant concern considering he was limited to just 25 games in his fourth season with the Nets. Far from championship contention, Brooklyn has to decide whether or not its best, though injured, pure scoring prospect is worth more than $20 million per year for the foreseeable future. 

If another team makes a big offer, the Nets might just have to let him walk and tax the loss to a committed rebuild. Or if they truly believe in his upside, Brooklyn will have to roll the dice on Thomas' potential to develop into a franchise cornerstone. 

Thomas has proven to be an elite shot creator when healthy. Despite the constant criticism of his defense, playmaking and overall fit, he's still shown flashes of being a star-caliber player. Even still, this decision is far from straightforward for the Nets, who likely lack a definitive answer to this dilemma themselves.

With the entire outlook of this franchise in a state of transition, Brooklyn’s front office has to navigate this situation carefully and evaluate how either outcome will impact its roster structure inside the decade.

“When I got major minutes, I feel like I’ve been one of the best guards in the league at my position," Thomas asserted. "I feel like I showed that. There’s nothing really to talk about with that I feel like. When I do have the minutes in a featured role, then the sky’s the limit for me, and we’ve seen that these past two years. Definitely something to look at, for sure.”

For a Nets fan base that desperately misses the go-to scoring threat of past players like Kevin Durant or Kyrie Irving, letting go of Thomas’ offensive creativity and instinctual scoring would be a tough pill to swallow.

Nonetheless, if Brooklyn is expected to invest a significant portion of their salary cap in Thomas, they’ll need to be confident he can stay on the floor and elevate his teammates the way an efficient primary guard must to be competitive at this level. Overpaying for a somewhat one-dimensional, unreliable scorer is certainly risky. 

Though at just 22 years old, Thomas has plenty of time to refine his game and become a more complete weapon. He's also expressed a strong desire to remain in Brooklyn, valuing the relationships built with his fans, teammates, coaching staff and front office, but he’s acknowledged the business of this league and its unfortunate nature as well.  

“It’s a business,” Thomas told Brooklyn media over the weekend. “But at the end of the day, I would love to be back and get that straightened out to keep playing in front of the fans and keep building the relationships I’ve built here because I was drafted here.”

The Nets have the right to match any offer Thomas receives… but will they?