Thomas’ Crucial Role: The Key Matchup to Watch in Warriors vs. Nets!

With the Brooklyn Nets coming to Chase Center on Monday, the Warriors must ask themselves one question above all others: Do we have what it takes to slow perhaps the NBA’s most dangerous secret weapon?

Cam Thomas is not an All-Star. The muscular 6-foot-3 shooting guard doesn’t get mentioned in the same breath as Stephen Curry or Donovan Mitchell or Devin Booker. Yet Thomas, averaging 24.8 points per game, is scoring at a higher rate than those stars.

There will be games when the Warriors will greatly miss De’Anthony Melton as the first man up against an elite scoring guard. His absence means coach Steve Kerr must rely on a rotating cast of defenders.

Will coach Kerr start with Lindy Waters III, who has started alongside Curry in the five games since Melton was sidelined? Or will the coach turn to pesky Gary Payton II? His only two starts have come against Washington’s Jordan Poole, a former teammate, and Cleveland’s backcourt featuring Darius Garland and Mitchell.

Or will Kerr summon Andrew Wiggins and have someone else deal with 6-foot-8 small forward Cameron Johnson, one of the league’s best 3-point shooters and Brooklyn’s No. 2 scorer?

Johnson is averaging 19.1 points per game, is shooting 42.6 percent from deep and has been on a roll: 22-of-38 (57.9 percent) shooting from distance over the last four games.

But Thomas is shooting 38.7 percent beyond the arc this season, including a sizzling 21 of 41 (51.2 percent) over his last six games. He torched the Kings for 34 points – his sixth game this season with at least 30 – on Sunday when the Nets won in Sacramento.

What makes Thomas particularly dangerous is his ability to score from all three levels, the range to drain triples, the touch to punish opponents from midrange and the strength to blast into the paint and get to the rim. He’s a lot like the Knicks’ Jalen Brunson but with superior size.

Thomas’ physicality is why Kerr would consider either Payton or Wiggins – two of Golden State’s best pure athletes – as the first man up.

The Warriors already have seen some dynamic guards this season but none with Thomas’ combination of skills. They believe in their depth, and they’re going to need it because slowing him is the key to victory against the injury-ravaged Nets.