Cam Thomas injury return looming, and not a moment too soon for Nets

MILWAUKEE — Injured Cam Thomas spent Monday’s loss in a hoodie and street clothes, on the end of the bench in Miami talking with Nets owner Joe Tsai. But it sounds like Thomas could be suiting up sooner rather than later, and finally make his return to the court. It can’t come a moment too soon for Tsai and the Nets. “Cam’s doing great,” said Nets coach Jordi Fernandez.“As well as Ziaire [Williams].

They played five-on-five and did a great job.So we’ll see how they feel after.

That’s part of the process that they’re in right now.It seems like they’re getting close.” Thomas will miss at least one more game, Thursday’s tilt in Milwaukee marking his 12th straight absence with a hamstring injury. The Nets come out of Christmas not having had their leading scorer since before Thanksgiving.

And the results have been ugly. The Nets are just 3-8 since Thomas was injured, with their offense cratering badly. “It’ll be nice when we get Cam Thomas back just to have some … a real half-court bucket, half-court scorer,” center Nic Claxton said.“That’ll be good.

We’re missing him right now a lot.” Thomas has indeed been a bucket, averaging a team-high 24.7 points on impressive .461/.389/.866 shooting splits, all but the last representing career highs.He’s also risen to Fernandez’s challenge to become more efficient, shown in his Effective Field Goal Percentage (.544) and True Shooting (.606). And the offense has been hampered along with Thomas. The Nets had overachieved this season largely on the strength of their surprising attack.

Through Thomas’ most recent appearance, in the loss at Memphis, they ranked eighth in the league in Offensive Rating (115.0).But the Nets are just 26th — of fifth-worst — in the games since, at 105.9. The departure of point guard Dennis Schroder has just made it worse. “Obviously it’s different for everybody.

You’ve got a lot of people in the spots, but our offense is different ...