Isaiah Thomas describes painful trade after ‘clawing’ and bleeding for Boston

Isaiah Thomas describes painful trade after ‘clawing’ and bleeding for Boston

Isaiah Thomas describes painful trade after ‘clawing’ and bleeding for Boston
NBA

Isaiah Thomas describes painful trade after ‘clawing’ and bleeding for Boston

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Thomas published a letter on The Players’ Tribune detailing the mixed emotions he had following his trade from Boston to Cleveland.

Isaiah Thomas was driving home after celebrating his one-year wedding anniversary when Danny Ainge called him. By now, you know the deal: Thomas was sent as part of a package to Cleveland that landed Boston its point guard for the future, Kyrie Irving.

But what you didn’t know, which Thomas unpacked on The Player’s Tribune in a beautifully written goodbye letter titled “This Is for Boston,” were the lessons the Celtics’ All-Star point guard learned after he was traded months after an All-Star season.

IT4 got a message from a Boston legend

Of all the messages Thomas received in the aftermath of that blockbuster trade, none mattered more to him than one from Tom Brady.

What’s up, IT, I heard about the news. You good?

I’m alright. I mean, it’s crazy. It’s a cold game.

Yes it is. Best of luck. You’re gonna do great. Keep in touch.

Brady is a Boston sports legend and universally regarded as one of the greatest quarterbacks of all-time. After just two and a half years in Boston, that text reframed how IT4 saw his career with the Celtics.

The owners still have all the power

No matter how many ways Thomas looked at the trade that pushed him out of the city he “scratched and clawed for, and bled for, and put my everything on the line for,” the deal hurt, still hurts and will probably continue to hurt for years to come.

That’s why he wanted to reframe the narrative around Kevin Durant’s decision to leave the Oklahoma City Thunder for the Golden State Warriors in the summer of 2016. Because “99 times out of 100, it’s the owners with the power,” and Celtics’ management showed its strength by dealing a hometown favorite on the heels of his best season.

Plus, in a lot of ways, I actually think this was a good lesson. Not only for me, but for the league as a whole. And for the fans and the media, too, you know, just in terms of how they talk about guys changing teams. I was thinking about that last year with KD and his free agency — about how people gave him such a hard time for doing what he felt was best for him and his future. How they turned him into a villain, just for doing what was his right to do as a free agent in this league. Suddenly, it was, “Oh, he’s selfish,” or, “Oh, he’s a coward.” Suddenly, just for doing business on his end, and doing right by himself, he was portrayed as this bad guy.

But that’s what I think my trade can show people. I want them to see how my getting traded — just like that, without any warning — by the franchise that I scratched and clawed for, and bled for, and put my everything on the line for? That’s why people need to fix their perspective. It’s like, man — with a few exceptions, unless we’re free agents, 99 times out of 100, it’s the owners with the power. So when players are getting moved left and right, and having their lives changed without any say-so, and it’s no big deal … but then the handful of times it flips, and the player has control … then it’s some scandal? Just being honest, but — to me, that says a lot about where we are as a league, and even as a society. And it says a lot about how far we still have to go.

And like I said, there’s no hard feelings. But I just hope that the next time a player leaves in free agency, and anybody wants to jump on him or write a critical story or a nasty tweet about him, maybe now they’ll think twice. Maybe they’ll look around the league, look at a case like mine, and remember that loyalty — it’s just a word. And it’s a powerful word if you want it to be. But man … when it comes to business, it ain’t nothing to count on.

Nobody’s gonna want to mess with the Cavaliers

Thomas may have just been traded from the conference’s No. 1 seed, but make no mistake: Cleveland runs things in the East, and Thomas alongside the best basketball player in the world is going to be a tough check for most defenses.

IT4 spent a portion of his letter breaking down why teams will have nightmares trying to stop Cleveland’s offense:

From a basketball perspective, me on the Cavs is a match made in heaven. If you’ve watched any Celtics games last year, then you know how many times I would have to go through double and even triple teams, just to get my shot off. It ended up working fine for us — guys played great, and my shot was falling. But this year … man, it’s not even going to be a thing. You really going to throw three guys on me, when I’m sharing a court with the best basketball player on the planet? Nah, I don’t think so.

And that’s just LeBron. I look up and down this roster, and all I see is guys I can’t wait to play with: Kevin Love (reunited with my old AAU teammate!), Tristan Thompson, JR Smith, Iman Shumpert … it’s no accident to me that these guys have won the East three years running. And now add me to the mix, and D. Rose, and my guy Jae? This roster, man — it’s just stacked. Cavs fans, let’s get ready to rock and roll.

That’s why Thomas’s son, James, was so excited to find out where his father had been traded:

James, my oldest — I guess he really is his father’s son, because he asked the same first question I did. “To where?”

“Cleveland. They traded me for Kyrie.” And I’m pretty sure you know what came next.

“LEBRON! LEBRON JAMES! Dad — Dad. You get to play with LeBron James!”

If he made someone a Celtics fan, that might be enough

Thomas had visions of joining the Mt. Rushmore of Boston athletes, and after last season, he was well on his way. After he was traded to Cleveland, those dreams were dashed. Moving around from team to team wasn’t the career he envisioned when he was drafted dead last in 2011.

But in his farewell letter, it seems he came to grips with the idea of not being a Boston great. Instead, he found a new way to put his Celtics career in perspective:

Like, yeah, I’ll never be Tom Brady now. And I’ll never be David Ortiz. I’ll never be Bill Russell, or Paul Pierce, or Kevin Garnett, or Larry Bird. But whether I would have without this trade, or I wouldn’t have — I still like to imagine one thing.

I like to imagine that sometime not long from now, somewhere in Boston, someone is going to be a parent, talking basketball to their kid. And their kid is going to ask them, point-blank like kids do, you know, “Yo — why you become a Celtics fan?”

And that parent, man, they’re going to think back to themselves — really think on it. And then they’re going to smile, and tell the truth.

“I saw Isaiah Thomas play.”

That would make me very happy. For me, I think, that’d be enough.

These were some of the highlights of Thomas’s farewell letter, but there was much more the All-Star guard unpacked in that letter, including how he felt the timeline of his own basketball career aligned with Boston’s.