a trade idea<\/a> Jackson proposed between them, the Bucks, and Nets. Scotto mentioned that Cleveland discussed a Thomas trade that would have sent Lonzo Ball (since traded to Utah and waived) and \u201csecond-round draft compensation\u201d to Brooklyn. Those talks didn\u2019t progress, and the Nets waived Thomas very shortly after the 2 p.m. Central deadline on Thursday. That\u2019s apparently what he was hoping for, telling Andscape\u2019s Marc Spears:<\/p>\n\u201cSuper excited ready to actually help and contribute to another team. My next team is getting elite scoring, good play-making and a good combo guard\u2026 I picked Milwaukee because they wanted me and they told me they\u2019ve been interested for years now. So, it\u2019s good to have this opportunity come to fruition. And I\u2019m just hoping to meet everybody, get to know everybody and contribute as soon as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s worth noting that Milwaukee also has about $3m remaining on its room exception this season (the rest of it was used to sign Kevin Porter Jr. to a new contract last July), and could use that to outbid other Thomas suitors. But given the mutual interest between Thomas and the Bucks, it\u2019s probably a minimum contract. Since he is changing teams in free agency, Milwaukee will have Non-Bird rights on him this offseason, so their next contract could only give him a 20% raise on his new salary\u2014a fair bit less than the $6m Brooklyn is still paying him this season. For anything more, they\u2019d need to use a different exception, like the mid-level or bi-annual.<\/p>\n
Getting a scorer as talented as Thomas, despite his inefficiency, for next to nothing is certainly a steal. What\u2019s more interesting is what this means for Milwaukee moving forward this season. On their first three-game winning streak of the season, their competition before the break is more serious than the cellar-dwelling Pelicans and Pacers. Still, at just 21-29, they\u2019re 2.5 games back of Charlotte\u2014whom they have a tiebreaker over after winning the season series 3-1\u2014for the East\u2019s final play-in spot. So the hill is still steep, if they choose to climb it.<\/p>\n
Thomas can only score, doesn\u2019t defend, and while he\u2019s right that he can play-make, it\u2019s really only for himself. He probably will help more than he hurts the rest of the year, but maybe not to a great extent. Mainly, he\u2019ll give the moribund Bucks offense (24th in ORtg per Cleaning The Glass) a definite boost whenever he\u2019s on the floor, and the Bucks are simply not good enough to not add talent. I wonder about his future, though: he\u2019ll be an unrestricted free agent for the first time in his career this summer, and will certainly be trying to raise his stock after a disappointing last year or so in Brooklyn, which impacted his market last summer. Giannis has complained about selfish play from his teammates and how guys are playing for their next contracts; few would call Thomas unselfish, and he\u2019s hoping for a multiyear deal come July. So perhaps he isn\u2019t a good long-term fit if Giannis sticks around. But a new team-friendly deal over two years (at most) could be tradable, especially if it has a team option.<\/p>\n
One more note: many assumed that up-and-coming big man Pete Nance would be converted from his two-way contract to a standard deal (Milwaukee currently has one two-way spot open) for that final roster spot. While that could happen yet, if the Bucks were to open a spot by waiving Gary Harris, Gary Trent Jr., or Jericho Sims, they\u2019d have to stretch their 2026\u201327 salary over three more years. That\u2019s because each of them has a player option for next season, which is counted as guaranteed money. Nance has 21 games of two-way eligibility remaining, having been active for 29 so far this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Before Thursday\u2019s trade deadline, a rumor last week linked the Bucks with former Nets guard Cam Thomas, primarily…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":592360,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,40296,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-592359","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-bucks-free-agency","10":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116040464051571101","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=592359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592359\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/592360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=592359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=592359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=592359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}