Hoiberg helped launch Thomas' rise to the NBA
An interesting thing about Bulls guard Matt Thomas, he looks like someone who patterned his game after Fred Hoiberg, the former Bulls player and head coach.
Thomas is 6-foot-4 and has a talent for squaring up quickly to launch a 3-point shot. It just happened that Hoiberg recruited him to Iowa State and was his coach there for two years.
"Even when I was coming out of high school, I was getting that comparison," Thomas said. "Obviously, he had a really successful 10-year career in the NBA and that was always my dream to play in the NBA. So I felt like he was a good guy to kind of be a mentor for me to help me reach my goal."
Thomas is now in his third NBA season. He started in Toronto in 2019, finished last season with Utah, then stuck with the Bulls out of training camp. The Bulls will have a decision to make in the next few days, since all non-guaranteed contracts in the NBA become guaranteed for the rest of the season on Jan. 10.
Thomas is too young to have watched much of Hoiberg play in person. Growing up near LaCrosse, Wis., though, he said Iowa State was one of first major programs to show serious interest. Learning how to shoot is something that happened before Thomas arrived in Ames.
"At a young age, I just developed a love and passion for basketball and I just always wanted to be in the gym," he said. "A lot of it was just myself in an empty gym to be honest."
His mother, Martha, grew up in Iowa and was an offensive specialist in the now-defunct 6-on-6 high-school basketball. Thomas and his older brother convinced their mom to expand a concrete patio in the backyard until it was big enough to practice 3-pointers.
"I remember going out there and shoveling it off and putting on my hat and snowpants and gloves and coat just to shoot a little bit," Thomas said. "I loved it."
Two years into Thomas' run at Iowa State, Hoiberg left to coach the Bulls. He's now head coach at Nebraska. Thomas' performance improved in his junior and senior seasons for the Cyclones, so it turned out OK.
"It was tough, right, because it was the guy who recruited you and the big reason why I chose Iowa State and all of the sudden he took this opportunity with the Bulls," Thomas said. "It was good, though.
"There were rumors or fear that maybe myself, Monte Morris, Georges Niang (would leave) and none of us looked elsewhere or transferred. We all stayed and stuck at Iowa State, we had a lot of success there and I'm thankful for all those memories that I have at Iowa State."
It's fairly common in the NBA for teams to cut players on non-guaranteed contracts before Jan. 10 to create roster flexibility. The Bulls have two players in that category, Thomas and Alfonzo McKinnie.
"To be honest, I don't even know (what's going to happen)," Thomas said. "I'm here right now and I'm taking things like I always have, a day at a time, and until I'm told something else, that's all I'm really worried about. Just doing what I can to stay ready and help this team gets wins."
There's also a decent chance the Bulls don't make any changes to the roster. The chemistry on the team has been outstanding, and there's a nice balance in depth since the Bulls have a 3-point shooter in Thomas, an athletic wing in McKinnie, a point guard in Devon Dotson and someone who can play in the paint with Tyler Cook. Dotson and Cook are their two-way players.
The Bulls seemed to acknowledged further moves aren't likely when they decided to keep McKinnie on the roster when his second 10-day contract expired a couple weeks ago. Alize Johnson, who was let go, might have been seen as less of an ideal fit, since coach Billy Donovan was using him as an undersized center.
Johnson has since joined Washington on a 10-day contract. That deal ends Friday, when the Wizards face the Bulls at the United Center.
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