Cam Thomas’ free agency has become another reminder that Brooklyn may have been right to move on.
The Nets spent last season exactly where many expected them to be: near the bottom of the league, finishing with 20 wins and landing the sixth pick as they wrapped up a three-year rebuilding phase. Now they’re already reshaping the roster for 2026-27, with the Julius Randle trade, the signings of Keon Ellis and Moe Wagner and a few other moves giving the group a different look.
One name, though, is no longer part of the plan. Thomas won’t be on the roster next season.
That decision drew heat when Brooklyn cut ties with him during the season. Thomas had already shown he could score, coming off a year in which he averaged 24 points at only 23 years old. So when the Nets waived him, plenty of people saw it as a team giving up on real talent.
His brief run in Milwaukee only kept that conversation going for a bit. Thomas gave the Bucks an immediate boost after arriving, but the role didn’t last. Before long, his minutes faded and Milwaukee waived him as well.
Now he’s an unrestricted free agent for the first time, and nearly a month into that market he still hasn’t landed an offer.
That’s the part that makes Brooklyn’s call look sharper in hindsight. The scoring is still there on paper, but the combination of his final half-season with the Nets and what followed in Milwaukee has left Thomas in a tough spot. Even with the numbers he’s put up, his path back into the league looks far less certain than it once did.
Sean Marks and the Nets have taken plenty of swings over the past few years, and not all of them have worked out. But after watching Thomas’ summer unfold, it’s hard to say Brooklyn was wrong to cut bait.
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Marks is still selling patience in a division where the pressure points have shifted elsewhere, with the Knicks celebrating a championship and the 76ers making the kind of headline-grabbing star move that changes expectations overnight. Brooklyn, by contrast, appears content to keep building incrementally and stay nimble for what comes next, even if that means waiting longer before making the sort of move that changes the conversation. [Read more 🡒]