Forsberg: Breaking down the Isaiah Thomas conundrum

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A Boston Celtics assistant coach approached my table shaking his head before offering, “IT is pretty pissed at you.”

I was already aware. It was December 2017 and the Celtics were in the honeymoon phase with Kyrie Irving after the jaw-dropping summer trade that delivered him to Boston in exchange for Isaiah Thomas. A 16-game winning streak had helped Boston to a 22-4 start and Irving had been otherworldly throughout, but especially in the fourth quarter during the winning streak.

I had written a story at my last stop about Irving’s fourth-quarter heroics and marveled that anyone could even approach the final-frame production we had seen just one year prior during Isaiah Thomas’ magical final season in green.

The story was fairly harmless. The headline was not. 

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Thomas was, understandably, not pleased. He took to Twitter to vent (in a since-deleted Tweet), "Hahahaha I’m happy Kyrie playing well & they doing good. Don’t disrespect with the Isaiah who tho. You knows damn well who I am and what I’ve done!”

Could the headline have been gentler? Absolutely. But I don’t begrudge the editor who picked it. It’s their job to get people to click on the story. It certainly worked.

A short time after the story ran, the Celtics assistant coach bumped into me grabbing lunch on the road in San Antonio and noted how Thomas had texted some Boston staffers in the aftermath to express his anger as well. 

We tell this story now because 1) Five years later, we’re still racked with guilt and 2) It’s a little glimpse into how prideful Thomas is about Boston and what he accomplished here.

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Which is why we couldn’t help but think about Brad Stevens after Thomas offered some emotional responses Tuesday while detailing how he’s hurt the Celtics haven’t brought him back despite opportunities in recent seasons.

A couple weeks after the Thomas-for-Irving trade, Stevens participated in an end-of-summer event at the Basketball Hall of Fame. The pain from having to deal away Thomas, after everything he had given the team in a magical 2016-17 season, was still evident on Stevens’ face. Stevens should have been ecstatic the Celtics had acquired a talent like Irving, instead he glumly detailed how he spent hours just staring at a wall in his office after the trade was finalized.

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(Imagine if he knew how tumultuous the Irving experience would be from there?)

Over the past five years, maybe the most common question I’ve heard from Celtics fans is whether Boston should bring back Thomas. We totally understand the sentiment. The Thomas years were the stuff of fairy tales. The former 60th pick blossoming into an MVP-candidate talent and pretty much willing the Celtics far beyond any reasonable expectations.

Until maybe the last two months, it’s rarely felt like that again since Thomas’ departure. Gordon Hayward, recruited to play alongside Thomas before the summer swap, got injured minutes into his first game in green. Irving went down in March of that season (though Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, and Terry Rozier nearly willed the team to the Finals that year). The 2018-19 season was a complete disaster and, in the aftermath, Irving fled for Brooklyn and Al Horford relocated to Philadelphia. Kemba Walker arrived to restore the good vibes but, after three months and an All-Star nod, he began having the knee issues that would define his time here. The pandemic arrived, Boston overhauled its front office amid some middling ways, and, maybe outside of the bubble run, the team has been maddeningly inconsistent. 

Some of my friends like to joke that there’s a “Curse of IT” lingering over the Celtics. This notion that the cold way he was moved out has contributed to some of the negative karma around the team in recent seasons. They’ve openly wondered if the only way to break that curse is to bring Thomas back.

The Celtics visit the Hornets on Wednesday night trying to build off their recent momentum. The 33-year-old Thomas, playing on the latest in a series of 10-day contracts, adds an unavoidable storyline to the proceedings.

Thomas said Wednesday he believes he can help the Celtics, even if it’s more off the court than on. He expressed disappointment that Stevens, since elevating to president of basketball operations, hasn’t brought him on board despite as many as five open roster spots after Boston’s deadline dealings. Ime Udoka bottom-lined it Wednesday when he noted that, "point guard was never really a position of need” this season.

Complicating any thought of a reunion, the Celtics have built a team with a defensive identity and don’t have the sort of playing time and touches available that might allow Thomas a true opportunity to rekindle his playing career. There’s also something to be said for not trying to restore a magic that might simply not be possible again.

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Now, Thomas is adamant that he’s content to simply be a veteran presence, one who is clearly familiar with the core of this team. We’ll relent that there are worse ways to fill the 15th roster spot than someone who still clearly bleeds green, even while he’s still wearing teal (at least until his 10-day expires this weekend).

But after watching the IT Show up close, we’re left hoping that opportunities like Charlotte give Thomas a chance to show he can still be a productive NBA player. He can fade into the background further down the road. For now, we’d like him to find a team that can give him an opportunity to rekindle some of that wrist-tapping magic.

Because we’ll always be nostalgic for that 2016-17 season. It was so unexpected -- kinda like Boston’s recent turnaround -- and leaves us all nostalgic for vintage IT. 

And, despite what that 2017 headline might have suggested, Thomas’ place is Celtics lore is indelible.

 

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