Isaiah Thomas had his best years with the Boston Celtics but he still blames the franchise for how they handled the injury that derailed his career. Speaking up for a podcast on “The Players’ Tribune” the former Celtics guard explained why he still holds a grudge over how his situation was handled back in 2017.
“The thing that hurt the most was that nothing was explained to me,” Thomas said of his injury. “If you tell me, ‘This can possibly get worse, this is what you have,’ then it’s on me to make the choice. But it was none of that stated. I was just going in like, ‘Okay, I got a bone bruise, I can figure this out like I’ve done my whole life.’ They shot me up to go into the [Washington] Wizards series. I got shot up three times, every round. The last one was right before Game 7 of the Wizards series. Then in Game 2 of the Cleveland series, I get hit by a screen, and it just shoots to the back of my hip, and I’m like, ‘What the [heck]?’”
Going into the 2017 playoffs, Thomas was in the middle of the best stretch of his career. In 76 regular-season games, he averaged 28.9 points, 5.9 assists, and 0.9 steals per game on 46.3% shooting. The 5’9″ guard finished that season 5th in MVP voting after leading the Celtics to 53 wins (1st in the East).
It was only a few weeks later that Thomas suffered a hip injury that changed everything. What started as a basic bone bruise developed into a right femoral-acetabular impingement with a labral tear. Despite getting “shot up” throughout the postseason, the pain was clearly disrupting Thomas’ game, and after re-aggravating the injury he was kept out of the rotation entirely.
The Celtics’ season ended at the hands of LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers, who easily won the series and advanced to the Finals. Thomas, meanwhile, was traded to the Cavaliers that summer in the trade that brought in Kyrie Irving. He only played 32 games that next season and averaged just 15.2 points on 37.3% shooting.
In truth, Thomas was never the same after that hip injury in 2017 and his career dramatically fell off after that season. After a few failed stints across various teams, Thomas eventually faded from the spotlight and it remains to be seen if he’ll ever be signed to an NBA roster again.
Had the Celtics been more open and honest about the injury, and that Thomas had the potential to make it worse, he might have made a different choice than to play through it. Instead, the Celtics kept some details to themselves and let Thomas take the risk to his health for the sake of pursuing a title.
Today, the Celtics are coming off a championship run and their stint with Isaiah Thomas is probably the last thing on their minds. But for the former All-Star point guard, he can’t stop thinking about the moment that changed his career and what he might have accomplished had he been able to make a full recovery.
