Michael Porter Jr. said Cam Thomas is learning the hard way that there is a lot more to sticking around in the NBA than scoring. Days after the guard was waived by the Milwaukee Bucks, Porter said Thomas’ path has been shaped as much by frustration and personality as by the points he can pile up.
Porter, discussing Thomas on The Road Tripp Podcast, said Thomas “doesn’t really socialize,” adding that he can “say like two words all day, all practice” and “doesn’t really talk to anybody.” He said Thomas was not willing to break out of that personality, be more talkative or try to become a leader. “I think that’s kind of what happened here in Brooklyn,” Porter said.
The blunt assessment lands at a difficult moment for Thomas, who averaged 21.4 points over his last three seasons with the Brooklyn Nets while shooting.434/.353/.860. That scoring made him one of the league’s more dangerous young guards, but it did not secure a long-term home. Last summer, the Nets reportedly offered him a two-year, $30 million contract with a team option and also a one-year, $9.5 million deal that required him to waive his no-trade clause. Thomas turned down both and signed the one-year, $6 million qualifying offer instead.
His season then unraveled. Thomas missed time with a hamstring injury, his third within the last year, and the Nets improved while he was sidelined. He fell out of Brooklyn’s starting five, then was waived at the trade deadline after the team failed to move him. Soon after, Thomas criticized the Nets for “not believing in anybody.”
The search for a new landing spot did not go much better. Thomas quickly joined the Bucks but fell out of the rotation there too, and Milwaukee waived him after just six weeks. Porter said he does not think Thomas meant to be a bad teammate, describing his behavior as simply who he is. “It can come off like he has an attitude, but really that’s just him,” Porter said. Still, he added that when it comes to talent, Thomas is “up there with the best of them.”
Porter also pointed to the money Thomas passed on, saying the guard believed his value belonged in the same conversation as players such as Austin Reaves and Jalen Green, who received $100 million contracts. “I know he was frustrated about the contract the year before and the fact that Brooklyn didn’t pay him,” Porter said. “When he first got there, they were raving about him because he had a few good games.”
That tension between scoring and staying power is now Thomas’ reality. He will try to catch on with a new team in unrestricted free agency, carrying elite shot-making, a complicated recent history and the question of whether the next locker room will see a scorer, a problem or both.
