In some ways, Cam Thomas is one of the best players in the NBA. Since joining the Brooklyn Nets in 2021 (since birth, really), Thomas has been an outrageous, unparalleled shot maker. Name a move–Thomas has it in his bag. The leading scorer in Oak Hill’s illustrious history and the youngest player in NBA history to score 40 points in three straight games, he spins in twisting layups from acute angles and nails preposterous fall-away jumpers from obtuse ones. There’s genius in the way he commands his stocky frame, burrowing through defenses to hunt for shots like a truffle pig. On the right day, there’s not a deadlier scorer alive. The pureness of his game is pharmaceutical grade. He’s the Michael Beasley of Jalen Brunsons, the Ray Allen of Allen Rays.
In other ways, Thomas is bad to a degree that’s shocking for an NBA player. Although he has the size and shape of a traditional point guard, he lacks the instincts of one, refusing to forfeit the ball unless it’s been remanded by court order. Passing seems like an admission of defeat. On defense, he doesn’t play defense. Granted, Thomas isn’t so much an indolent player as he is an uninhibited one, his every movement informed by a marrow-deep yearning to let that thing fly. It makes perfect sense, really: if basketball is supposed to be fun, why should he have to do the boring stuff?
To start this season, Thomas is living his best life, as if his parents are out of town and ice cream is for dinner. Through the Nets’ first 13 games, Thomas is averaging a career-high 25.3 points per game on 60.3 percent True Shooting. His 329 total points are the ninth-most in the league and he’s notched fewer assists than background ham-and-eggers like Santi Aldama and Ty Jerome.
As the Nets steel themselves for some heavy duty tanking, Thomas is at the center of the Nets’ purposeful badness. The team is roughly five points better per 100 possessions with him on the bench, but he’s also their sole current player with a real chance at greatness. No other player in the NBA shares his combination of powerful highs and bottomless lows. With the ball in his hands, he can do things that just about no one else can do. Without it, he opts out of doing things that just about everyone else is required to do. Even more so than famous one-way players like Trae Young or Luka Doncic, Thomas has a lopsided skillset. His prodigious scoring strains to outweigh his other deficiencies.
Whereas Thomas was once a solidly detrimental presence on the court, he’s now a roughly neutral one. And yet, despite his overall growth, his defense has actually steadily declined, according to advanced stats like EPM and DPM. Similarly, he’s still a mediocre playmaker, never averaging more than 3.3 assists per 36 minutes.
Instead, Thomas’ improvement is rooted in his evolution from a very good shot-maker into arguably the best in the world. Relative to the most skilled players during the most skilled era in NBA history, Thomas stands out nonetheless. Among guards, Thomas ranks in the 93rd percentile as a mid-range scorer and in the 90th percentile from three, per BBall Index. At last, he can now (mostly) justify taking the kinds of shots that he’s always taken.
Beyond his status as the Nets' maybe-cornerstone, Thomas offers a glimpse into the cosmology of NBA stardom. All the tired chin-wagging that offense wins games, defense wins championships, ignores the reality that elite scorers have always been basketball’s scarcest and most valuable resource. There’s a reason why Michael Jordan has a shoe company and Scottie Pippen doesn’t. Successful defense requires intense focus and discipline. Scoring requires something like divine blessing.
In this sense, Thomas’ game collapses the distance between star and role player. The scope of his duty is as limited as those of any Three-and-D wing, it’s just that his job is to score lots of points rather than idle in the corner. While he’s is hardly the first combo guard to be Ball Don’t Stop-pilled, he’s the rare one who’s capable of being the main attraction, not merely a sideshow. Unlike Jamal Crawford or Jordan Clarkson, Thomas is a powerful enough offensive engine to sustain his team’s attack. At his peak, he renders defenders powerless—of his nine career 40 point games, eight of them have come against high-level playoff teams.
For Thomas, the only way out is through. Eventually, he must become such a bucket that he’s no longer a problem. The simplest way for Thomas to fulfill his immense promise isn’t to have a come-to-Jesus moment where he realizes that sharing is caring, but to become so potent that he doesn’t have to care about sharing in the first place.
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