It wasn’t supposed to get messy like this between Isaiah Thomas and Celtics fans this week. January 3rd at the TD Garden was supposed to be a day of appreciation for the All-Star, a former Celtic who put up historic numbers over the past couple years in green before being traded in August for Kyrie Irving.
There has been some (understandable) resentment from Thomas over the past few months about the deal and towards the organization. However, Celtics fans were never a target of Thomas and they were always going to honor him with a big ovation from the crowd and then would be treated like the enemy again.
Over the past two weeks though, there has been a fair amount of talking and reflecting about the trade by Thomas with the press. It started back in December on a Christmas day interview with ESPN in which he discussed his mentality playing through injury last year.
“That was big,” Thomas told ESPN. “I’ve always played through injury. If I went back and did it again, I would have sat out the playoffs because I would be playing right now. I would be 100 percent healthy.”
I’m actually on Team Isaiah when it comes to these comments. He’s a basketball player who has been on a below-market contract the past three seasons. Would he have gutted it out for the Celtics if he knew they would send him packing in August and potentially cost him tens of millions of dollars (due to further damage to his bad hip) in his next contract? Of course not. No reasonable person would or should tough it out with that prior knowledge. His mindset makes sense.
However, Thomas took things a little further by placing some blame on the Celtics for how the situation played out with him physically.
“I do wish I had more information,” Thomas said of his hip injury. "It was never something (they said) that could possibly shut you down for awhile because if that was the case, I definitely wouldn’t have played.”
Danny Ainge and Brad Stevens both came out last week in interviews on 98.5 The SportsHub and responded to those claims. Each said they had numerous discussions with Thomas about shutting it down. Ainge also said the team had Thomas get a second opinion on his hip. It was a mistake to let Thomas play in hindsight, but to imply the team was withholding information is a tough look here.
That brings us to today, when Celtics public relations informed the assembled media ahead of Tuesday’s practice that the team would not be showing a tribute video at tomorrow’s Celtics-Cavs game for Thomas, at his request.
Whether or not you think Thomas deserves a tribute video is a debate that I’m not going to get into here (though I think he does, based on what he went through for the team last season). That’s not the issue here. While it’s easy to understand why Thomas wants to wait on getting a tribute (he’s not playing, and his family isn’t in town), he has to understand how this might look in the big picture to some.
Get over myself huh? Because I would like to actually PLAY & have my family in the arena to appreciate the LOVE the city/organization will show US? It ain’t about me it’s about my family... Ha you get over yourself you dumbass https://t.co/LiqeXUVTwD
— Isaiah Thomas (@isaiahthomas) January 2, 2018