While the Cleveland Cavaliers Won a great game vs. the Minnesota Timberwolves Monday night at Rocket Arena, rookie Meleek Thomas put on quite the show in his NBA debut.
Thomas wrapped up his first game scoring 16 points, shooting 4/5 from the perimeter and 6/8 from the floor. The team also rewarded Thomas with the game ball for his efforts.
While Thomas's debut only shows the backing from Koby Altman and Kenny Atkinson, another big game in the Basketball world chimed in on Thomas's performance, his former coach at Arkansas, John Calipari.
Calipari went onto X to show his support for his former guard.
Cal's comments:
"So proud of Meleek Thomas. He did not play for two games but was prepared for when his number was called!! Cleveland won in overtime, and Meleek scored 16 points in an overtime win and went 4-for-5 from the three-point line!
"Two days ago, my comment to him was to continue to prepare for games like you are going to play 30 minutes. Obviously, he did that tonight. Proud of you, Meleek!"
Calipari has made his living helping his talents achieve their dreams of playing in the NBA. If you look across the league, you will see a ton of players from Arkansas and Kentucky during his time leading the Wildcats program, so Cal knows talented players when he sees them, and Thomas is the latest player from the Calipari talent pool to put on a show at the NBA level.
As Thomas looks to add more playing time, performances like Monday night's will make it difficult to ignore for Atkinson and staff. Now that Thomas has made a name for himself after his debut, it will be interesting to see how teams attack him moving forward.
On Wednesday night, the Cavs welcome the Washington Wizards to Rocket Arena for the first game of a home/away back-to-back. The Cavs will likely lean on the 20-year-old rookie in at least one of those games to keep everyone's legs fresh. How he continues to find a role in the NBA will be fun to watch. The biggest thing about Thomas, he has zero fear when his number is called.
The Cavaliers may have once again found a steal in the 2026 NBA draft, if first impressions matter as much as we are told, it's hard to make a better impression than Thomas did on Monday night.
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