Cam Thomas always looked up to new Nets teammate James Harden. Now, he’s joining Harden in the Adidas family.
After winning co-MVP honors at NBA Summer League, where he led all scorers with an average of 27 points per game, Brooklyn Nets first-round pick Cam Thomasjust landed yet another coveted contract: a multi-year footwear and apparel endorsement deal with Adidas.
“Being able to be in the same brand as James Harden and Damian Lillard … some of my favorite players in the league, is a big thing to me,” Thomas told Boardroom. “It was an easy decision.”
Playing out the shoe deal process into the summer proved smart, as he continued to impress in Las Vegas with his All-Summer League First Team-level play. The former LSU guard emerged as a key target for Adidas, who looked to add the 6-foot-4 scorer for both his promise on the floor and his potential to impact the contending Nets right away.
Long before he led the SEC in scoring as a freshman or left powerhouse Oak Hill Academy as its all-time leading scorer, Thomas remembers his earliest days learning the game and the impact that his mother (and rebounding partner) Julie Thomas had on his development.
The 19-year-old also remembers Adidas being a part of that journey early on.
“I used to wear D-Rose shoes all the time,” he said. “My mom used to always buy them for me and I’d wear them in tournaments.”
Now an official endorser of The Three Stripes — the fifth from the 2021 draft class — he counts the latest Harden Stepback 2s and Dame 7s as some of his favorite on-court sneakers to hoop in, with the rookie likely lacing up a variety of models from Harden’s signature line during his debut season in Brooklyn.
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For his official rookie photoshoot in Brooklyn’s black jersey set, he was spotted in bright blue Harden Vol. 5s. During a sideline interview at Summer League, Thomas summed up his excitement level to play with Harden on a scale of 1-10, rather simply: “A thousand.”
“Even before I got to the league, I was like, I wanna play with James Harden,” he told Boardroom in Las Vegas. “He was playing with the ball in his hands and getting all these assists — catch-and-shoot threes for all the guys. To be able to actually play with him in Brooklyn now, I can’t wait.”
Along with Harden, Thomas joins fellow Nets teammates Reggie Perry and Sekou Doumbouya as Adidas athletes, as he begins his rookie season next month.
