Cam Thomas Was Waived by the Bucks Just Weeks After the Team Signed Him

Just weeks after he was signed to the Milwaukee Bucks, Cam Thomas is again looking for a new team to play basketball. ESPN reported on March 23 that the Bucks had decided to waive Thomas's contract just two months after signing him so that they could convert forward Pete Nance's two-way contract.

Following the news that the Bucks had waived him, many wanted to better understand exactly what motivated that decision. Here's what we know.

Cam was signed by the Bucks in February after getting waived by the Brooklyn Nets, and scored 34 points for the team off the bench in his second game with the team. In more recent weeks, though, Cam has seen his role with the team diminish. He has averaged 9.6 points on 41 percent shooting with 1.9 assists and 16 minutes in the 16 games since Feb.11. Because he hasn't delivered the spark the team was looking for, it seems like they were willing to move on from him quickly.

In explaining the decision after the fact, Bucks head coach Doc Rivers said that the team simply had to make a decision between two players.

"We ran out of bodies, and at the end of the day, there were guys you had to make a decision on," Doc explained on Feb. 23. "I thought Cam was really good overall, and he may be somebody we revisit."

"Just where we're at right now, you know, not really in the hunt as when we signed him, we thought it was the right thing to do for the rest of the guys right now," he continued.

If Cam were to sign with another team before the end of the year, he would not be eligible to participate in the postseason, because he would be signed after March 1. The Bucks, meanwhile, are trying to salvage what they can from what has been a disappointing season.

The Bucks' decision to sign Cam in the first place was perhaps the last in a long string of moves designed to convince their superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo that he should stay with the team. Giannis, who is widely considered one of the best players in the world, has been in trade rumors all season, and a consensus has emerged that he will be traded from the Bucks during the offseason so that he can contend for championships.

Cam was highly unlikely to be the answer the Bucks, who sit in 11th place in the Western Conference, were looking for, but it was worth a shot for a team that has very little left to lose at this point. The Bucks won a championship with Giannis and were likely hopeful that they could contend for more. Now, though, they are very much in a rebuilding mode, and are hoping to find a way to emerge from a Giannis trade with the pieces they might need to make something new.