Fred Katz of The Athletic recently polled 16 rival NBA executives about what “fair” contracts would look like for the four primary restricted free agents who remain unsigned.
We have already relayed stories regarding Jonathan Kuminga, Josh Giddey and Quentin Grimes, with the key caveat that teams are much more likely to be conservative in their valuations than agents because they don’t want their own players to become too expensive in the future.
In today’s story, the executives weighed in on Nets guard Cam Thomas, who led Brooklyn in scoring with a career-high 24.0 points per game in 2024/25 but was limited to just 25 appearances due to hamstring issues. As Katz writes, Thomas was easily the most polarizing name of the group, and executives were uncertain about whether their views were consensus or otherwise.
“I wouldn’t be shocked if this was way lower or higher,” said one executive who proposed a two-year, $32MM deal. “His scoring is very much ‘eye of the beholder.’”
Whereas 15 of the 16 respondents proposed contracts of at least three years for each of Kuminga, Giddey and Grimes, only eight did the same for Thomas. And while most executives viewed Kuminga ($17-25MM annually), Giddey ($20-25MM) and Grimes ($12-16.7MM) as having relatively stable market values, the same was not true for Thomas.
In addition to various contract structures, including a one-plus-one (two years, $40MM with a team option, so only $20MM guaranteed), seven two-year deals, five three-year contracts, and three four-year proposals (no one proposed a five-year deal), the hypothetical offers also ranged anywhere from $10MM to $30MM per year, with the average being $16.7MM annually but only $42.7MM in total guaranteed money.
According to Katz, only two executives valued Thomas in the exact same way. They were also the most bearish on him as a player, offering $20MM total over two years. And the executive who was seemingly the most bullish on the 23-year-old — deeming a three-year, $90MM deal as being “fair” — was quick to add a caveat.
“I wouldn’t personally give (it to) him … But I justified it as ‘fair’ because if I’m him, I’m saying I’m better than Jalen Green and that’s way less than he got,” said the staffer who suggested the $90MM contract, the most lucrative deal in terms of both total money and annual average value.
As Katz points out, Green received a three-year $105MM rookie scale extension last October. But other score-first guards, like Collin Sexton and Norman Powell, have been traded for relatively modest returns, and the Jazz couldn’t find a taker for Jordan Clarkson, who reached a buyout and signed a minimum-salary deal with the Knicks.
The Nets need someone to score points next season, even if they’re clearly more focused on the 2026 draft than their results in the standings, and Thomas is the player best equipped to do that, per Katz. But Brooklyn also has a lot of leverage as the only team which can currently make Thomas a strong offer, something it reportedly has shown little interest in doing to this point.