{"id":119263,"date":"2025-09-04T22:01:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T22:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/119263\/"},"modified":"2025-09-04T22:01:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T22:01:08","slug":"nets-cam-thomas-signs-qualifying-offer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/119263\/","title":{"rendered":"Nets’ Cam Thomas Signs Qualifying Offer"},"content":{"rendered":"

12:02 pm: Thomas has officially signed his qualifying offer, the Nets announced (via Twitter<\/a>).<\/p>\n

\"\"6:59 am: Nets restricted free agent Cam Thomas<\/a> has decided to sign his one-year qualifying offer worth just under $6MM to return to the team, reports Shams Charania of ESPN<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Reporting since late July<\/a> indicated that Brooklyn was willing to give Thomas a multiyear deal but that the team wasn\u2019t going beyond two years at roughly $14-15MM per season, with a second-year team option. According to Charania, the Nets also proposed a one-year, $9.5MM contract that could have been worth up to $11MM in incentives, but it would\u2019ve required Thomas to waive his right to veto a trade.<\/p>\n

Rather than accepting either of those team-friendly proposals, Thomas will take his chances on a more modest one-year contract that will give him a de facto no-trade clause for the 2025\/26 season and will put him on track to become an unrestricted free agent next July.<\/p>\n

As Charania points out, while the Nets were the only team to enter this offseason with significant cap room, there could be 10 or more cap-space teams in 2026, creating more options on the open market for a free agent like Thomas.<\/p>\n

The 27th overall pick in the 2021 draft out of LSU, Thomas has increased his scoring average in each of his four NBA seasons and put up career highs of 24.0 points and 3.8 assists per game in 2024\/25.<\/p>\n

However, he was limited to just 25 games last season due to hamstring issues and has been up and down from an efficiency standpoint, with career averages of 43.9% from the floor and 34.9% on three-pointers. He\u2019s also not considered an above-average defender.<\/p>\n

As talented as Thomas is as a scorer, his shortcomings in other areas limited his appeal in restricted free agency, and the Nets\u2019 favorable cap position allowed the team to play hardball in negotiations. Having agreed to re-sign other free agents like Day\u2019Ron Sharpe<\/a> and Ziaire Williams<\/a> to contracts that aren\u2019t guaranteed beyond 2025\/26, Brooklyn was clearly prioritizing its ability to maintain cap flexibility next offseason and wasn\u2019t interested in making a longer-term commitment to the 23-year-old at this time.<\/p>\n

If Thomas plays out the 2025\/26 season with the Nets, the team will maintain his Bird rights<\/a> entering next summer. However, if he approves a trade to another club before February\u2019s deadline, his Bird rights wouldn\u2019t go with him \u2014 that\u2019s presumably the reason why he turned down Brooklyn\u2019s one-year, $9.5MM offer, which would\u2019ve required him to essentially \u201cpre-approve\u201d a trade. Even if the Nets decide not to re-sign Thomas next July, his Bird rights could be useful in sign-and-trade scenarios.<\/p>\n

If Thomas OKs a trade during the season, his new team would have his Non-Bird rights<\/a> and wouldn\u2019t be able to offer him a starting salary higher than about $7.2MM (120% of his previous salary) next offseason without using cap room or another cap exception.<\/p>\n

The Nets will actually open up some cap room as a result of Thomas signing his qualifying offer, since the team had been carrying a cap hold of approximately $12MM for him \u2014 that cap hit will be cut in half once he officially puts pen to paper, creating an extra $6MM in spending flexibility for Brooklyn.<\/p>\n

Thomas was one of four notable restricted free agents around the NBA whose situation remained unresolved as of Labor Day. We can probably expect resolution for Josh Giddey<\/a> (Bulls), Jonathan Kuminga<\/a> (Warriors), and Quentin Grimes<\/a> (Sixers) at some point this month, since they face an October 1 deadline<\/a> for accepting their own qualifying offers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"12:02 pm: Thomas has officially signed his qualifying offer, the Nets announced (via Twitter). 6:59 am: Nets restricted…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33138,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,11895,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-119263","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-cam-thomas","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}