As a long-time fan of the Boston Celtics, my feelings about the trade with (ugh) Cleveland to send guard Kyrie Irving to the Celtics has been really hard to quantify. To obtain Irving, the Celtics had to send Isaiah Thomas, the NBA’s third highest scorer in 2016-2017 at 29 points per game, and other consideration to the Cavaliers.
This story isn’t about whether or not Kyrie Irving is a better NBA player than Isaiah Thomas. Irving physically towers over Thomas (6’3″ vs. 5’9″) and is considered by most talent evaluators to be a more skilled and complete basketball player. But such measurables do not include the heart of the player, either. The sports pages are filled with stories about how gifted “can’t miss” athletes do, indeed, miss. Quite often.
A year ago, the Boston Celtics diminutive point guard was tearing up the NBA and leading the Celtics to the best record in the Eastern Conference.
A year ago, Isaiah Thomas’ role with the resurgent Celtics was earning him the fifth most votes for the NBA’s most valuable player award.
A year ago, Isaiah Thomas was, by far, the most popular basketball player in Boston and one of the league’s most dynamic players.
This week, though, Isaiah Thomas was traded for a second time in just six months. This time, it was to another arch-enemy of his former Celtics, the Los Angeles Lakers.
What the heck just happened?
LeBron James and LeBron James, that’s who!
The initial trade (Kyrie Irving to Boston for Isaiah Thomas) was primarily the result of Irving’s (and countless others’) inability to deal with that oversized ego in Cleveland named LeBron James. Irving would forever remain second banana in Cleveland once James returned four seasons ago. Irving demanded a trade.
The Boston Celtics, meanwhile, knew that point guard Isaiah Thomas’ contract would be coming due a year later and weren’t prepared to pay him the maximum value that he would likely to be offered by other teams. Thomas, for his part, didn’t make matters any easier in Boston when he said that the Celtics should get ready to increase his pay from $6.3 million/season to perhaps over $20 million/year.
“They know they’ve got to bring the Brinks truck out.”
So, the Celtics cut a unique deal last August with their Eastern Conference rival Cavaliers to acquire Kyrie Irving from Cleveland and send Isaiah Thomas to the purgatory known as LeBron Land on Lake Erie.
Thomas, who injured his hip during the Celtics’ Eastern Conference finals loss last season to these same Cavaliers, needed the first few months of this season to recover from the injury. Thomas missed the entire preseason and two months of early season games for the Cavs. When he first donned a Cleveland jersey on January 2, 2018, he was rusty.
His return to the floor also coincided with a series of embarrassing January losses by the Cavaliers as Cleveland’s defensive effort was questioned. Isaiah Thomas, who is considered to be a defensive liability at 5’9″, recently commented about the Cavaliers’ defensive swoon.
“I know that teams I’ve been on, defense is determined on deflections, steals, loose balls, who’s the hardest-working team on that end.”
Uh-oh. Isaiah Thomas (though correct about his observations) apparently forgot who the REAL general manager/coach/star player is in Cleveland. The “Land” isn’t big enough for another voice as Thomas should have remembered that the self-proclaimed “King” calls all the shots in Cleveland.
So, at the NBA’s trading deadline on Thursday, the Cleveland Cavaliers made NBA history by trading away six of their players (including former pal of LeBron James, Dwayne Wade) and then made a scapegoat out of the little point guard who had been an NBA All-Star the past two seasons in Boston.
Isaiah Thomas was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers.
Thomas went from two different NBA Eastern Conference contenders to the sub-500 circus in LA which now features rookie guard Lonzo Ball and his media-magnet Dad (the unofficial coach of the Lakers), LaVar Ball.
For his part, Isaiah Thomas came off the bench in his first game as a Laker Saturday night and provided the team with 22 points and six assists – albeit in a losing cause. Afterwards, Thomas commented that he felt like he got his powers back again.
“That is my job: to come to this team and bring that spirit, that fire, that killer’s mentality and just understand that we can take advantage of this opportunity that we have [the rest of] the season. It’s about winning, and it is about winning right now.”
For Boston Celtics fans who have loathed the Los Angeles Lakers for years, many will put their Laker hate aside to root for the 5’9″ point guard who wears his heart on his sleeve and dared to call out “King” LeBron James in Cleveland to get a fresh start.