Isaiah Thomas: The Little Ticket

With a pivotal Game 7 looming Monday night, Isaiah Thomas isn't backing down from the challenge. He never has.

Isaiah Thomas is quickly becoming a household name across the country. No, not the Isiah Thomas who was the leader of the bad boy pistons teams in the 1990’s, this Isaiah Thomas is playing now and he’s quickly becoming one of the best players in the NBA.

If you want to know just what type of player Isaiah Thomas is one needs to only look at the first two games in the Celtics' series against the Washington Wizards in the second round in the NBA playoffs. The first displays his grit and toughness. Six minutes into the game and down 16-0 Thomas had his tooth knocked out while going for a steal. His response? Come back and knock down back to back three pointers on his way to 33 points and a 123-111 come from behind win.

But a missing tooth isn’t the only thing Thomas has had to deal with during the playoffs. Shortly before game one of the first round news broke that Thomas’ sister Chyna had been killed in a car crash in Washington. Any kind of hardship like this is more than enough reason to sit out at least one or two games, after all there are more important things in life than basketball but Isaiah Thomas has never been one to quit. The Boston Celtics star has been battling his entire career.

Born in Tacoma Washington, Thomas has been out to prove others wrong since he was a kid, after all he’s always been the shortest player on the court wherever he goes. Even today Thomas stands at 5’9 although most people speculate he is closer to 5’8. In comparison the average height of an NBA is 6’7, so on average NBA players stand nearly one foot taller than the Celtics point guard but that doesn’t stop him and it never has.

Thomas attended the University of Washington where he averaged 16.4 points per game against tough PAC 10 competition. Perhaps what most people knew about Isaiah Thomas prior to his emergence in the NBA was that he was ‘that short guy who made a game winner’ in the PAC 10 tournament. Thomas had a successful college career but was highly overlooked coming into the draft. Scouting reports contained speculations such as “Ability to get inside will be largely negated by the size of NBA players” and “Sometimes hurts his team by trying to make the highlight reel plays instead of making the simple pass” and Thomas was eventually picked by the Sacramento Kings 60th overall. The last pick in the draft.

Of the last players selected last in the NBA draft since it was shortened to two rounds in 1989 only 9 of the 22 have ever played a single minute in the NBA. Needless to say the odds were stacked against Thomas but that’s just the usual for Thomas. So how did Thomas respond? By putting up 11.5 points per game on 45% shooting and 4.1 assists, in short it was the greatest season statistically by the last pick in the draft. Ever. And it was only his rookie season.

Despite shining as a rookie, Thomas struggled to find his niche in Sacramento but that’s to be expected in a place like Sacramento where most players struggle. Eventually Thomas made his way to Phoenix where he found himself in a battle of point guards with Eric Bledsoe and Goran Dragic. After less than a year with Phoenix Thomas again saw himself on the move but this time it was to Boston. At the time Phoenix was a playoff team while the Celtics were struggling to find an identity following a blow up of the roster and was going through a dramatic rebuild led by GM Danny Ainge and new coach Brad Stevens.

There were many speculations about how long Thomas would stay in Boston, after all this was Thomas’ third team in as many years and Boston had a reputation for moving players around constantly since their rebuild began. Thomas began his time with the Celtics coming off the bench to provide much needed scoring and by the end of the season he had turned a Boston franchise looking for a leader into a playoff team. Prior to the Thomas trade the Celtics were 20-31, following the trade they went 20-11 and finished 7th in the Eastern Conference. In the two months that Boston fans saw Thomas in the green and white they were able to catch a glimpse of things to come.

The following year Thomas began to see his playing time increase as well as his role with the team. Not only was he able to lead the Celtics to their second straight playoff appearance after finishing 48-34 and fifth in the East but Thomas was also selected to play in his first All Star game. He was the lowest draft pick to be named an All Star since the draft was shortened to two rounds and tied Calvin Murphy as the shortest NBA All Star ever. However Boston was eliminated in the first round of the NBA Playoffs.

Even with the huge jump the Celtics had made the previous year no one could have seen how good the Celtics would be in the 2016-2017 season. With Isaiah Thomas firmly cemented as the face of the Boston Celtics they went on to finish 53-29 and as the number one seed in the East going into the playoffs. On the way Thomas was selected to his second straight All Star game and was even considered a MVP candidate. But that’s when tragedy stuck the Thomas family. Chyna Thomas, Isaiah’s sister, was killed in a one car accident.

There were speculations about whether Thomas would play but in true Isaiah Thomas fashion he played with the entire city of Boston and others around the country supporting him. Despite the Celtics team rallying behind Thomas the Celtics lost the first two games of the series against the Chicago Bulls. Down 2-0 in the series and just having returned from visiting his family in Washington, Thomas returned to lead the Celtics to a 104-87 victory. That game proved to be the turning point in the series as the Celtics won the next three games and the Celtics won the series 4-2 with Thomas averaging just over 21 points per game.

The Celtics had it past the first round of the playoffs for the first time since Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett were Celtics. But what came next was truly special. As I wrote previously, 6 minutes into game one against the Washington Wizards Thomas had his front tooth knocked out. Not only was Thomas without a tooth but the Celtics were without a point, down 16-0. But Thomas isn’t one to give up so he came back only to knock down back-to-back threes en route to 33 points and a Celtics victory.

May 2, 1994 Chyna Thomas was born. May 2, 2017 Isaiah Thomas took the court for game two of Celtics-Wizards. What came next is like a scene out of a movie. Thomas not only took the court that day, he dominated it. Thomas scored 53 points on what would have been his sisters 23rd birthday in a 129-119 overtime victory. Thomas delivered one of the greatest individual playoff performances we have ever seen on the day that would have been his sister’s birthday and while chants of “MVP” echoed through out the TD Garden Thomas dedicated his performance to his late sister.

To put in perspective how great Isaiah Thomas’ performance was there have been 9 players who have scored 53 points or more in a playoff game, 8 of those players are in the Hall of Fame. The one who isn’t? Isaiah Thomas. Isaiah Thomas isn’t afraid of the big moment. He’s been making clutch shots since his days at Washington. And he doesn’t care what the doubters have to say. He’s been proving them wrong his entire life. Through toughness, a tremendous work ethic and an endless list of motivation Thomas has become the face of the Boston Celtics and one of the best players in the NBA. So go ahead and doubt the 5’8 Superstar, it won’t bother him. But be ready for him to drop 40 points on your team. It’s just what he does.