Thomas bids Hub adieu
Bares soul in Players Tribune
Isaiah Thomas will always have a special place in his heart for Boston, even if the stunning trade that sent him to Cleveland still pains him.
The ex-Celtics point guard penned an emotional farewell to Boston in an essay The Players Tribune published yesterday afternoon. He touched on everything from the phone call with Danny Ainge informing him of the trade, to his love of Boston after 21⁄2 years in the city, to a text he received from Patriots quarterback Tom Brady.
Thomas was driving back to his home in Seattle after he and his wife Kayla celebrated their one-year wedding anniversary when he got Ainge’s call. After he missed the initial call, Thomas called back, and the C’s president of basketball operations delivered the stunning news.
Thomas detailed the reactions he got from his two sons, James and Jaiden. James was excited because his father will play with LeBron James. Jaiden, he said, had grown to love Boston and was saddened to leave.
The feeling of getting traded still stung.
“But yeah, I’ll just say it: That (expletive) hurt. It hurt a lot,” Thomas wrote.
“And I won’t lie — it still hurts.
“It’s not that I don’t understand it. Of course I get it: This is a business. Danny is a businessman, and he made a business move. I don’t agree with it, just personally, and I don’t think the Boston Celtics got better by making this trade. But that’s not my job. That’s Danny’s. And it’s a tough job, and he’s been really good at it . . . . These deals just come down to one thing: business. So it’s no hard feelings on that end. I’m a grown man, and I know what I got into when I joined this league — and so far it’s been more blessings than curses.”
Thomas addressed how the city and Celtics fans embraced him in his rise from perceived sixth man to a star, and what it meant to feel support from the city after his sister Chyna was tragically killed in a car accident in April.
It also seems that Thomas is embracing his new team. He called being a Cav “a match made in heaven” and played up the team’s “stacked” roster. But he admitted it would be weird playing for a team he was just chasing.
“Of course, being on the team the East runs through now ... I won’t lie, it’s some mixed emotions,” Thomas wrote. “Because that was our goal in Boston for so long — get through the Cavs, and win the East. And I know that’s still Boston’s goal. But now, it’s like, I’m the one who has to stop them from reaching it. And that’s tough. Because come playoff time, if and when we have to face the Celtics . . . I don’t know, it’s hard to explain. But that won’t just be ‘the team I used to be on.’ That’s my old team. The elite offense, the 30-some national TV games, the becoming a place where free agents want to come and play — I feel like I helped build that. I helped create that.
“And come playoffs, all of a sudden, it’ll be like, O.K., now destroy it.
“It’s sad, man. It’s just sad.
“But I didn’t come to Cleveland to lose.”
Thomas shared the text he got from Brady, one that obviously stuck out among the many messages he received upon being traded.
“What’s up, IT, I heard about the news. You good?” Brady wrote.
“I’m alright. I mean, it’s crazy. It’s a cold game,” Thomas responded.
“Yes it is. Best of luck. You’re gonna do great. Keep in touch,” Brady said in return.
Thomas finished his essay on that note, writing that he wished he’d have a career in Boston that was similar to Brady’s, an overlooked prospect who won multiple titles. But somewhere along the line his mindset changed.
“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.”