{"id":152758,"date":"2025-07-30T10:44:48","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T14:44:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=152758"},"modified":"2025-07-30T10:44:48","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T14:44:48","slug":"cam-thomas-restricted-free-agent-options","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/07\/30\/cam-thomas-restricted-free-agent-options\/","title":{"rendered":"Cam Thomas Might Be Destined for Lou Williams-Level Disrespect"},"content":{"rendered":"

The situation between Cam Thomas<\/a> and the Brooklyn Nets has dragged on for a while. As a restricted free agent, Thomas is limited in what he can look for on the open market. Only teams with cap space can give him an offer sheet, and this summer, that was not the case with many teams. Now, he is stuck with the Nets and their offer. His options are either to play out the season and be an unrestricted free agent next summer or sign a long-term deal with the Nets. But, they do not want to offer him the money he wants.<\/p>\n

Cam Thomas Might Be Destined for Lou Williams-Level Disrespect<\/h2>\n

Former guard Jeff Teague<\/a> offered some insight into why the Brooklyn Nets are not ready to pay Thomas big money. Speaking on his podcast, he talked about players who have been labeled as scoring specialists and how they rarely get big money<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you get put in that scoring specialist role, you always get underpaid. Lou Williams got underpaid his whole career. He brought way more to the game than just scoring. But you never see too many just scorers. The Nets ain\u2019t really disrespecting him. They don\u2019t see him as THE guy. They are still looking for THE guy. If they thought he was, they would have paid him.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Teague has a point right there. Lou Williams<\/a> earned $8 million as his highest salary<\/a> during his later years with the Los Angeles Clippers. But, he is not the only example of a sixth man scoring specialist who didn\u2019t earn top dollar.<\/p>\n

\"Mar
Mar 13, 2025; Chicago, Illinois, USA; Chicago Bulls forward Julian Phillips (15) defends Brooklyn Nets guard Cam Thomas (24) during the second half at United Center. Mandatory Credit: David Banks-Imagn Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Comparing the Salaries of Scoring Specialists<\/h3>\n

Williams is not the only scoring specialist off the bench who didn\u2019t get a high salary. We can also look at examples like JR Smith<\/a> and Jamal Crawford<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Crawford earned $5 million per season during his best years in a Los Angeles Clippers uniform. During that period, he won the Sixth Man of the Year award twice. Only after two awards, he got a big paycheck from the Clippers: $13 million per year. Smith, another bucket getter, earned around $5 million until his last three years in Cleveland.<\/p>\n

Thomas believes he is more than just a bucket getter<\/a>. He thinks he can be a starting-level point guard<\/a> in the league. In the last two seasons, he has started 74 games for the Brooklyn Nets. But, he is a classic example of a player on a bad team who has to score.<\/p>\n

Should Cam Thomas Wait to Become a Free Agent?<\/h3>\n

Cam Thomas is not the only restricted free agent having trouble getting a big contract. Jonathan Kuminga<\/a>, Quentin Grimes<\/a>, and Josh Giddey<\/a> are in the same situation. All of them believe they deserve more money than their teams are willing to pay.<\/p>\n

Like the others, Thomas might be better suited to play the year and hope for a better market next season. There were already plenty of teams planning to have cap space in 2026, believing it would be a good free agent market<\/a>. Yet, there will be fewer names on the board if Luka Doncic<\/a> signs an extension with the Los Angeles Lakers. Jaren Jackson Jr<\/a>. will be off the board as well after signing his deal. With more teams having money to spend, it might be easier to get a long-term, high-salary contract from the Nets or another team<\/a>. Plus, one more year of proving his worth cannot hurt. Thomas is still 23 years old, and he has plenty of time to earn a high salary if he continues to improve.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 David Richard-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The situation between Cam Thomas and the Brooklyn Nets has dragged on for a while. As a restricted free agent, Thomas is limited in what he can look for on the open market. Only teams with cap space can give him an offer sheet, and this summer, that was not the case with many teams. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5291,"featured_media":152777,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,6,62,3],"tags":[4069,200,4276,1968,640],"class_list":["post-152758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-nets","category-nba","category-news","tag-cam-thomas","tag-jeff-teague","tag-josh-giddey","tag-jr-smith","tag-lou-williams"],"modified_by":"Jordan Pagkalinawan","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5291"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152758"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":152780,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152758\/revisions\/152780"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}