Road to Duke
Lance Thomas was born April 24, 1988, in Brooklyn, New York, and raised in Scotch Plains, New Jersey, by his mother, Lily Irvin, who worked as a head manager at a Ford plant. He grew up a city kid — running around parks, playing basketball from sunup to sundown, going inside only to eat or sleep. The water, the outdoors, fishing — none of that was part of his world. Basketball was everything.
Thomas attended Scotch Plains-Fanwood High School for his freshman and sophomore years before transferring to St. Benedict’s Preparatory School in Newark for his junior and senior seasons. At St. Benedict’s, he played under Danny Hurley — the brother of former Duke point guard Bobby Hurley, and now the head coach at UConn. The connection to Duke basketball was already woven into the fabric. Under Hurley, Thomas helped lead St. Benedict’s to two consecutive Prep A Division New Jersey State titles with a combined record of 56-3 over those two seasons. As a senior, he averaged 14.5 points and 6.5 rebounds per game.
The recruiting world took notice. Thomas was ranked 20th nationally by RSCI, 18th by Scout (fourth among power forwards), and named a 2006 McDonald’s All-American — scoring 9 points with 2 steals in the game. He also played on the gold medal-winning USA Under-18 National Team at the 2006 FIBA Americas Championship. He chose Duke over Rutgers, Wake Forest, UConn, Arizona, Florida, and Georgia Tech. He was also an honor roll student who enjoyed drawing — a creative side that would surface again years later at Duke, where he spent a summer interning as a graphic designer in the athletic department.
At Duke
Thomas’s four years at Duke were defined less by individual brilliance than by relentless, grinding improvement and an unflinching willingness to do whatever the team needed.
As a freshman, he averaged 4.0 points and 2.5 rebounds. As a sophomore, 4.3 and 3.3, starting 28 of 32 games and shooting over 50% from the field. His career high of 21 points against Duquesne on November 28, 2008, broke his previous mark of 15 and showed what he could do when the looks came. But Thomas was never going to be the go-to scorer. His value was on the other end of the floor and on the glass. As a junior, he shot a remarkable .626 from the field in 37 games while averaging 5.3 points and 3.6 rebounds. He was the Duke player whose stat line never told the full story.
Senior year was the culmination. Thomas was named co-captain alongside Jon Scheyer — the same Scheyer who now coaches the program. He started 39 of 40 games, averaging 4.8 points and 4.9 rebounds in 25.3 minutes per game. He was voted to the 2009-10 ACC All-Defensive Team. He led the team in charges taken with 16 — a stat that captures his mentality perfectly. He finished 10th on Duke’s all-time offensive rebounds list with 255. He was the strongest player on the team, posting the top bench press at 315 pounds with 20 reps at 185 and the second-best squat at 390. He shot over 50% from the field in all four seasons.
In the 2010 national championship game against Butler, Thomas started alongside Scheyer, Kyle Singler, Nolan Smith, and Brian Zoubek. Duke won 61-59 in one of the most dramatic title games ever played. Thomas was part of every defensive stand, every contested rebound, every possession that kept Butler from completing the Cinderella story. When Zoubek grabbed the final rebound, made the free throw, and intentionally missed the second, and when Gordon Hayward’s half-court heave rimmed out — Thomas was right there, having played his role to perfection.
Off the court, Thomas majored in visual arts and spent the summer of 2009 working as a graphic designer in Duke’s athletic department, designing game programs. He participated in the Role Model Speaker Series at the Emily K Center. He was, by every account, exactly the kind of player Coach K built the program around: tough, smart, selfless, and willing to sacrifice individual glory for team success.
After Duke
Thomas went undrafted in 2010. For a co-captain of a national championship team, for a McDonald’s All-American who had started 39 games on the biggest stage in college basketball, the silence on draft night was crushing. Years later, he reflected on it with characteristic directness: he’d won the national championship in his last college game and thought he’d at least get an opportunity.
Instead, he went to the Austin Toros of the NBA Development League, where he spent the better part of two seasons grinding through minor-league basketball — long bus rides, small gyms, modest crowds. In 65 games for Austin, he averaged 13.4 points, 6.2 rebounds, and 1.3 assists. He was selected for the 2012 D-League All-Star Game. He earned his way up.
The New Orleans Hornets (later Pelicans) came calling in December 2011, and Thomas began a revolving-door relationship with the franchise — signed, waived, re-signed on 10-day contracts, waived again, signed to multi-year deals, waived again. Between 2011 and 2014, he played 106 games for New Orleans, averaging 2.5 to 3.0 points per game. It was survival basketball: every practice, every game, every 10-day contract was an audition.
In December 2013, he briefly played for the Foshan Dralions in the Chinese Basketball Association before returning to the NBA. On September 24, 2014, he signed with the Oklahoma City Thunder, appearing in 21 games before being traded to the New York Knicks in January 2015 as part of a three-team deal. The Knicks waived him, then re-signed him on a 10-day contract, then another, then a rest-of-season deal. On March 22, 2015, Thomas scored a career-high 24 points against Toronto. He re-signed with the Knicks that summer.
New York became home. Thomas re-signed again in 2016, and before the 2017-18 season, he was named co-captain of the Knicks alongside Courtney Lee. He captained the team again in 2018-19. The kid from Brooklyn was leading the most famous franchise in basketball. Over four and a half seasons in New York, Thomas carved out a role as the consummate professional — a defender, a connector, a veteran presence in a young locker room. He earned over $24 million in career NBA salary.
The Knicks waived him in June 2019. He signed briefly with the Brooklyn Nets, was waived, then returned as a substitute player during the 2020 NBA bubble. His last professional basketball was played in 2020 — nine NBA seasons, 399 games, four teams, and a career built entirely on effort, defense, and refusing to quit.
In 2011, Thomas represented the United States at the Pan American Games, winning a bronze medal. In 2012, he was added to the USA Men’s Select Team roster that trained against the Olympic team in Las Vegas.
Where Is He Now
What Lance Thomas did after basketball is one of the most unexpected second acts in the Brotherhood.
It started at Duke. His best friend, Kenjuan Nichols, took him fishing at Falls Lake near Durham. Thomas hated it. He was a city kid. He didn’t want to touch worms. He didn’t want to touch fish. But Nichols kept dragging him out, and eventually the catches started coming so fast that Thomas had no choice but to get his hands dirty. Something clicked.
When he got to New Orleans with the Hornets, Thomas and Nichols went deep-sea fishing in the Gulf of Mexico for the first time. Off the southern tip of the Mississippi River, Thomas hooked a 107-pound yellowfin tuna and fought it for an hour. His fingers cramped, his body seized up, and he was completely exhausted when he finally hauled it in. He was hooked — on the sport, not just the fish.
Thomas bought his first boat in 2014, a Sea Hunt Gamefish 25. He learned offshore fishing from Gulf Coast captains Brett Ryan and Andy Cook, spending every off-day and every offseason on the water. In 2017, he founded Slangmagic — his own competitive sport-fishing team and lifestyle brand. The team won its very first event, the Faux Pas Rodeo in Venice, Louisiana. Thomas competed on the Gulf tournament circuit, fishing the Orange Beach Billfish Classic, the Mississippi Gulf Coast Billfish Classic, and the Blue Marlin Grand Championship.
He went further than most athletes-turned-anglers ever do: Thomas obtained his U.S. Coast Guard OUPV and 100-ton Master Captain’s license, making him one of the youngest professional athletes on record to earn it. He’s not just a fisherman. He’s a licensed sea captain.
But the part of the story that matters most is what Thomas is doing with kids. He launched a youth program through Slangmagic that teaches leadership skills through fishing — bringing the same lessons he learned from Danny Hurley and Coach K to a new generation, just through a different medium. The competitive fire, the teamwork, the patience, the willingness to get your hands dirty — it all translates.
Thomas lives in the New York area and remains connected to the Duke basketball family. His co-captain, Jon Scheyer, is now the head coach. His championship teammate Brian Zoubek builds real estate in Philadelphia. His 2010 class left Durham with a national title and scattered across the basketball world and beyond. Lance Thomas traded the hardwood for the open water, and he’s still competing.