Lakers’ Thomas: ‘All you need is 1 team to love you’

MIAMI — Isaiah Thomas still feels like there’s time.

He’s four months away from free agency, the wheeling-anddealing period when — the way things were looking a year ago — he would be signing a contract worth well over $100 million, ensuring himself a level of wealth that would be well beyond what the player picked last in the 2011 NBA draft should have reasonably expected.

Nothing is certain now.

He’s gone from a star in Boston to being cast aside in Cleveland and now finds himself as a backup with the Los Angeles Lakers, still trying to get healthy after hip surgery. If that wasn’t enough, there’s the added strain that what he does over these next few highstakes weeks will go a long way in determining what he’ll earn and where he’ll play over the next few years.

“All you need is one team to love you,” Thomas said Thursday. “It’s like the draft all over again. You just need one team.”

He averaged just under 29 points per game last season. And until Thursday night, when he led the Lakers to a 131-113 win in Miami over the Heat, he hadn’t scored more than 24 in any game this season. He couldn’t get on the floor until January while recovering from the hip surgery and lasted only 15 games with the Cavaliers before getting traded to the Lakers in early February. Thomas was the main piece that Cleveland got from Boston in the deal that sent Kyrie Irving to the Celtics, and his on-court Cavs tenure lasted roughly one month.

The Lakers want Thomas to mentor their young players, and they’re giving him rest and recovery time when he needs — mindful that he wants to go into this summer as healthy as possible.