Terry Thomas is coming home to play professional basketball.
The Halifax Hurricanes acquired the six-foot-four shooting guard from the Moncton Magic on Tuesday for veteran forward Billy White. Thomas, who hails from East Preston, N.S., and White were both named to the NBL Canada’s first all-star team last season.
Mike Leslie, the Hurricanes’ head coach and general manager who helped orchestrate the trade, was an assistant coach with the P.E.I Storm during Thomas’s first of two seasons on the Island.
“I have admired Terry’s growth and development into an elite basketball player in our league and in our country over the past four years,” Leslie said.
“Terry works extremely hard at improving and has reached the pinnacle of that. He’s a top five player in the league and here he is having the opportunity of playing in his hometown. We’re very happy to have him here in Halifax playing for us, in front of his family and friends.”
The 26-year-old Thomas was the Magic’s top scorer during the 2017-18 campaign, his only season in Moncton. He averaged 19.6 points per game which placed him seventh in league scoring and led the Magic in rebounding (6.5).
A former high school standout at Auburn Drive, Thomas played three seasons at St. Francis Xavier University before transferring to the University of Ottawa. His 21.9 points during his only season with the Gee-Gees ranked him fourth in U Sports scoring.
After university, Thomas played a year of pro ball in Germany before returning to Canada and two seasons with the Storm. In 2016-17, he was named the league’s Canadian player of the year while earning nods on the first all-star team and all-defensive team.
Last month, Thomas was named tournament most valuable player at the Williams Jones Cup in Taipei, Taiwan, after helping his Canadian team — 3D Global Sports — win the championship. He was named a first team all-star after averaging a tournament-best 19.4 points and 5.6 rebounds in eight games. His most productive performance was a 32-point showing in a 77-71 win over Iran.
“His recent MVP play at the prestigious Jones Cup, representing Canada and powering them to a gold medal is representative of his hard work, desire to achieve and competitive success on the international basketball stage,” Leslie said in a news release.
The 29-year-old White, a fan favourite, finished second in team scoring (18.3) last season, his third with Halifax. Leslie said the six-foot-eight power forward had expressed a desire to explore other opportunities after the two sides couldn’t come to an agreement on a new contract.
“Billy’s shoes are going to be hard to fill,” Leslie said.
“We had been in negotiations with Billy for a period of time. We’re in a salary cap era and we have a limited budget. We had made what we felt was a very respectable offer to Billy. I think at this stage of his career he was looking overseas or potentially testing the free agent market and seeing what was out there.
“Billy is a very talented and very popular player and we felt if he was able to receive an offer elsewhere and we weren’t able to match it, we would lose that player and not get anything in return. Moncton was looking for a player like Billy and we were looking for a quality player in return. I think it worked well for both teams.”
The Chronicle Herald
