Nets Correct To Keep Preaching Patience In Managing Thomas’ Potential
Anyone remember Milton Doyle?
In one somewhat-glorious 2017-18 season for the Long Island Nets in the NBA G-League, Doyle lit up scoreboards like a pinball machine, averaging 20.5 ppg. In one 42-point outburst, he knocked down 11 three-pointers, just two off the league’s historical high-water mark.
Many, including me, had him pegged for a bright future in Brooklyn, not necessarily as a star, but as a contributing player. Of course, it was not meant to be, and Doyle has spent most of the basketball seasons since shifting between different countries abroad.
I’m bringing this up because there’s a growing segment of Nets fans who are clamoring for Head Coach Steve Nash to give rookie Cam Thomas a bigger role in the rotation. Though their situations can’t be equated exactly (Doyle was four years older and much less heralded), there are some instructive similarities between the two scoring guards. Start with the fact that Thomas, Brooklyn’s first-round pick (No. 27 overall) in the 2021 NBA Draft, has dominated the two G-League games he was allocated to Long Island, scoring 35 and 46 points, respectively.
While it’s always better to shine no matter the level of play, G-League success has not proven to be automatically translatable to the bigger, faster NBA. Not just Doyle, Theo Pinson was another example of a Long Island stud who couldn’t crack Brooklyn’s lineup.
As much as fans want to push Thomas forward, especially with Kyrie Irving effectively banned from the team until he chooses to take a COVID-19 vaccine, leaving the Nets with a glaring hole in the shot creator department (Patty Mills has been a godsend as a shooter of the bench--and now starting in place of injured Joe Harris--but he’s been more of a recipient than a facilitator), I’ve always felt there should be no rush.
I see what others have seen from Thomas, who earned co-MVP honors in the NBA Summer League and thrives with the ball in his hands. He has an uncanny ability to get off shots using his dribble. Sure, it sounds logical that Nash should find a fit on the floor for Thomas, especially during James Harden’s rest minutes when Brooklyn is going with a no-star lineup or is over-reliant on Kevin Durant.
The problem: He’s not yet good enough to succeed that way in the NBA. In his limited 55 minutes on the court for Brooklyn, mostly in garbage time, Thomas has looked overmatched. It’s not just the numbers (5-for-24 shooting, including 0-for-9 from deep); many of his misses aren’t even close.
Nash gave Thomas a shot with the no-star bench mob in Orlando on Friday and, other than one step-back 20-footer that was way off the mark, he was invisible, with zeros across the stat line row during his five-minute second-half run.
I’m sure if he were given the opportunity, Thomas could post something like a 7-for-20 shooting night, maybe 1-for-5 from 3 and making 5-of-6 free throws. Unfortunately, that’s a losing outing, despite the landmark 20-point total.
The NBA rewards efficiency over volume scoring. You must have the cred of someone like Russell Westbrook to get away with that level of chucking, and Thomas just isn’t in Westbrook’s class as an athlete or well-rounded basketball player.
At 20, Thomas needs time to develop into who can be at this level. Maybe it will be in the mold of someone like Lou Williams, a prolific scorer off the bench who was drafted by the Sixers out of high school, whereas Thomas played one year at LSU. Williams, though, struggled mightily as a rookie and didn’t really come around to the player we know him to be until his third season.
If that happens to Thomas in a similar time frame, it would still be considered another tremendous draft win on the ledger of General Manager Sean Marks, who previously scored big with low first round picks Caris LeVert and Jarrett Allen.
There’s nothing wrong with Nash using regular season games to experiment with Thomas in low-stress minutes. I would expect that Thomas will be needed tonight in Cleveland with Bruce Brown joining Harris on the sidelines, leaving Brooklyn thin at guard.
But let’s lower the expectations for what Thomas can bring to the NBA table this season based on G-League performances. The Nets are correct in letting him breathe in what the league is all about so he can figure out how he can use his skills to maximum effect.
I’d bet that Thomas will exceed Doyle’s impact on the Nets, but it doesn’t have to be measured from this exact moment.