Top 3 Cam Thomas Landing Spots After Buyout

The Brooklyn Nets made the shocking move after the trade deadline of buying out Cam Thomas. The high-volume scorer was a pending free agent, and is now the top player on the buyout market. He can sign with any team that's interested.

He is in his second straight injury-plagued season, and his scoring is down to 15.6 per game in 24 minutes a night across 24 games. But he averaged well over 20 points the previous two seasons, 24 ppg last season, and 22.5 points in 66 games in 2023-24.

The Nets made every effort to trade him leading up to yesterday's deadline, but concerns over his defense and his one-dimensional offensive role, in addition to his injury troubles, cooled the market for him.

Let's have a look at Thomas's top 3 potential landing spots as a new unrestricted free agent.

Los Angeles Lakers

Even before Luka Doncic was sent to have an MRI on Friday, the Lakers had a scoring issue. Sure, they acquired Luke Kennard from the Atlanta Hawks to provide some extra floor spacing, but another pure scorer like Thomas coming off the bench would be a boon to the team's offense.

Scoring from the second unit has been a season-long problem for the Lakers, who rank 28th in bench scoring in the NBA.

New York Knicks

The Knicks are only a shade better than the Lakers in bench scoring (or, more accurately, lack of it), sitting in 27th in the league. The Guerschon Yabusele experiment was a disaster in New York this season (3 ppg), as the Jordan Clarkson one has been (only 9.4 ppg). Bringing Thomas across the East River from Brooklyn into Manhattan would be a big boost to their second unit.

Houston Rockets

Another team with championship aspirations, the Rockets could use more scoring punch off their bench as well. Fred VanVleet's 15 points a game still hasn't really been replaced in the backcourt. Obviously, Thomas won't bring the stout defense that FVV brought, or the playmaking, but he can fill it up and give the Rockets another offensive weapon that they could use.