The Brooklyn Nets have had to play the majority of the 2025-26 NBA season without guard Cam Thomas after he suffered a left hamstring strain early in November. Thomas has missed the past 17 games with his hamstring injury and while that could be mean he’ll be rusty when he returns to Brooklyn’s lineup, he might have bigger problems to worry about moving forward.
“The Nets are expected to gauge the market for Thomas, who rejected a two-year, $30 million deal with a team option for the second season and a one-year, $9.5 million contract with incentives up to $11 million while waiving the no-trade clause,” Brian Lewis of the New York Post wrote. Thomas accepted his one-year, $6 million qualifying offer (QO) to come back to Brooklyn for this season, but there was always a possibility that he could finish the campaign with a new team.
“There has to be a market for Thomas, and multiple league sources have told The Post there simply isn’t one,” Lewis continued. Thomas, 24, is averaging 21.4 points, 1.4 rebounds, and 2.6 assists per game while shooting 40.2% from the field and 35.6% from three-point land in his eight appearances this season. With Thomas not having a market at this point in time, it’s possible that he stays with the Nets, but that would also mean that he left money on the table.
As Lewis alluded to in his article, Thomas reportedly chose his QO over a two-year, $30 million offer with the second year being a team option and a one-year, $9.5 million deal in which he could earn as much as $11 million through incentives. Understandably enough, Thomas appeared to have felt that his market would be big enough after this season that he didn’t have to settle for either of those offers.
With the one-year deal, Thomas would have to waive his no-trade clause, meaning that he couldn’t decide where he would be traded to if the Nets went in a different direction prior to the trade deadline on Feb. 5. Ultimately, Thomas was unable to get the kind of contract offer he was looking for last offseason and unfortunately for him, it looks like there aren’t any teams interested in trading for him this year.