On His 33rd Birthday, Isaiah Thomas Has Gifts Yet to Give the Basketball World
Imagine the ball of your right femur grinding harder against the socket of your pelvis than you grind everyday just to make it – and indeed, to excel – as a 5’9” guard in a game dominated by giants. Isaiah Thomas (IT), who turned 33 on February 7, did that for a few years, playing at the highest level and making the NBA All-Star team twice before the injury caught up with him.
“The fact that he was able to play professional basketball with that hip is pretty incredible,” said Edwin Su, MD, an orthopedic surgeon specializing in knee and hip replacements.
The ball of the hip should look like a glistening billiard ball, Su said, but IT’s “looked like the surface of the moon.”
With bone mashing against bone, Thomas endured severe stiffness, restricted range of motion and pain every single day while playing against the best players in the world.
Prior to the deterioration of his hip, Thomas scored a season-high 34 points for the Boston Celtics in an April 2015 game against the Detroit Pistons. He dropped a then-career-high 42 points in a first-round playoff performance against the Atlanta Hawks in 2016. He also poured in 29 points in the fourth quarter in a late December 2016 game against the Miami Heat en route to a new career-high of 52 points. And he showed up Atlanta again in January 2017, hitting a fadeaway mid-range jumper to give Boston the lead over the Hawks with less than three seconds on the clock.
Playing Through Pain
The ‘undersized’ point guard deemed a “walking bucket” by former NBA forward-turned-analyst Kendrick Perkins soon had to contend with more than just opposing players standing a foot or frequently a foot and a few inches taller than him on the hardwood. His hip started hurting in the 2017 playoffs, causing excruciating pain no doubt exacerbated by the beating everyone who hoops in the NBA receives on a regular basis. Safe to say, I would assume, banging with guys upwards of 100 pounds heavier while nursing an aching hip joint takes an even greater toll.
Fighting through the hip injury while also grappling with grief following his sister’s death in 2017, IT’s performance suffered. Per his official NBA statline, his points per game average dropped by almost half from the 2016-2017 to the 2017-2018 season, as he went from 28.9 points per game in the former to just 15.2 points per game in the latter. His shooting percentage also dropped from an impressive 46.3 percent to a not-so-awesome 37.3 percent and his three-point shooting percentage decreased from a highly respectable 37.9 to a lackluster 29.3 during that same span. After averaging 6.2 dimes during the 2016-2017 season, his assists per game average also started to decline, reaching a pre-2020 low of 1.5 per game when he played for the Nuggets during the 2018-2019 season.
After leaving Denver, he played for the Wizards before getting traded to the Los Angeles Clippers – a team that, in summer 2019, signed Kawhi Leonard, a two-time NBA champion and former standout at Martin Luther King High School in Riverside, California, where I now reside. The Clips, my favorite team to watch aside from (or alongside) the Chicago Bulls, made what I consider a costly mistake by waiving Thomas two days after they acquired him from Washington.
He knew then he couldn’t wait to address his hip pain any longer.
A Resurfaced Hip Helps IT Resurface in the NBA
Thomas had surgery in May 2020.
“I got a resurface of my hip joint,” he told Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson on their ‘All the Smoke’ podcast in the spring of 2021. “It gives me the normal amount of space there that everybody got in the regular joint. My shit just metal.”
According to Thomas, he became the first guy to play in the NBA with a metal hip. The surgery seems to have taken care of the injury that dogged him and undermined his career.
“It changed my life because I was in pain everyday,” he said on the podcast. “Not just trying to hoop. Playing with my kids in the house. Life. I was in pain. It gave me my range of motion back. So health-wise, I’m good. Mentally I’m in a great place.”
Being injury-free allowed him to ‘ball out’ again, as they say.
Wearing the late Kobe Bryant’s signature shoe, he scored 81 points in a Pro-Am game in August 2021, echoing Bryant’s NBA career-high. In December 2021 he dropped 42 points when he debuted in the G League, the NBA’s developmental organization.
His recovery garnered attention from NBA front offices.
Inadvertently aided by COVID-19 protocols that depleted rosters, Thomas made a short-lived comeback. The Lakers picked him up on a 10-day contract in late 2021, providing a boost to their bench and a glimmer of hope during the dark times of the ongoing pandemic to all who witnessed him overcome adversity. In his first game back, he low-key led the Lakers in scoring with 19 points off the bench in just 22 minutes, managing a better +/- stat than all of LA’s starters. Perennial All-Star LeBron James scored just 18 points in that contest in 36 minutes on the court.
But the Lakers opted not to renew IT’s contract. The Mavericks signed him to a 10-day deal after that, but it too was not renewed.
IT’s Gift to the Basketball World
If I were an NBA executive, I’d do whatever was in my power to add a healthy, 33-year-old Thomas to my roster. Of course, it would be preposterous to think any organization would put me in such a role, but it would be equally absurd, in my view, to think Thomas has nothing left to contribute.
A look back at the arsenal he displayed at the apogee of his likely still-unfolding professional career reveals just how great an asset this 185-pound guard could still be now that he’s healthy again.
Thomas has several key moves in his bag that proved effective.
As Coleman Ayers at By Any Means Basketball noted, Thomas will use a hesitation dribble – also called a ‘hesi’ – as he hangs or floats the ball momentarily to throw off defenders before blowing by them. As basketball trainer and tutorialist Devin Williams observed, Thomas could also sell a pull-up and get the opposing defense to bite by faking with his eyes and body – a technique he can couple with the hesitation for maximal shiftiness.
Thomas mastered the “closed stance explosion,” akin to a “cross step” in his use of the move and – depending on how it’s deployed – tantamount to a “half spin” to freeze and fake out defenders. Keeping his body between the ball and the defense, he’ll pause briefly on both feet, changing pace while keeping his dribble alive and loading his weight on his back leg so he can quickly push off and drive forward, usually crossing his back leg over and in front of the leg closest to and facing the basket to initiate an unexpected, explosive drive.
Ayers also pointed out how Thomas has used his diminutive height to his advantage in the NBA. His quickness and smaller frame enabled – and presumably still enable – him to adeptly weave through big-bodied traffic. He can get lower than most everyone when necessary, leaning in and over to position himself past his defender as he starts to drive. As Ayers highlighted, Thomas has incredible body control when finishing too – a must for smaller players who want to excel – and he’ll proactively create contact with his body. When he was at his best, Thomas would often execute a reverse layup in or near the paint, using the rim and backboard to protect the ball and get off a clean look. Prior to release, he can pump fake or otherwise show the ball before going to an up-and-under or some other crafty move with the rock to misdirect big men looking for that easy block.
Around the rim, he has a two-foot finish he can use to help maintain control at high speed and assess his options while confusing would-be shot blockers. As Coach Collin Castellaw, founder of Shot Mechanics Basketball, explained in an instructional video, IT’s “power finish” off of two feet has enabled him in the past to get his shot up and over bigger and stronger defenders, but it’s also afforded him opportunities to read defenses before deciding how to proceed. Should he not have a direct line to the hoop after that off-the-dribble jump stop, he might pull out his “high scoop finish” to ensure his shot makes it over the long arms of a helpside defender.
High-arching floaters, runners and lay-ups, whether they flow from a two-footed stop or not, are also potent offensive weapons Thomas capably wields with alacrity.
“I’m a scoring guard and you got to be a scoring guard to be effective,” he said on that podcast with Barnes and Jackson.
Then there’s his jump shot. With a functional hip, he can clearly still get nice elevation, releasing the ball high enough – and quick enough – so the shot stays pure, as evident in his late 2021 foray with the Lakers. Even on a bad hip, he was able to shoot greater than 40 percent from three-point territory when he was with Washington. He’s utilized the pick-and-roll to his advantage, punishing defenders for going under screens by knocking it down from deep. You’ll also still spot him pulling up for a smooth, well-timed mid-range jumper in the paint, around the elbow or near the top of the key, as demonstrated in his recent Dallas debut back in late December.
When Thomas spoke with Barnes and Jackson, they all remarked on how much the game has changed in just the last few years since IT was ballin’ in Boston and close to being in contention for league MVP. Players are getting off more shot attempts and they’re pulling the trigger on three-point shots more frequently. Guards like Stephen Curry, Damian Lillard and Trae Young often dominate from downtown, drilling the deep three with abandon. Thomas is adept at the style of play, following in the footsteps of shorter guys who poured in the points while running the point, like Allen Iverson, Earl Boykins and others; however, he can also facilitate and assume the “floor general” role as needed.
For example, in that Mavs match-up with Sacramento just before the new year, he came off an outside screen and delivered the ball to a driving teammate for the dunk, showing off a one-handed dish with his offhand. Likewise, the left-handed point guard found the 7’3” Kristaps Porziņģis with a bounce bass after back-and-forth picks beyond the arc provided by the slender 7-footer. Thomas later lobbed the ball in transition from about half court, locating a sprinting teammate for an easy layup to tie the game late in the second quarter.
The Struggle Continues
As of his birthday in February 2022, Thomas remains unsigned.
“It’s been tough at times just because I don’t see why I’m not in the league,” he told Jalen & Jakoby on ESPN. “I showed that I’m healthy. I showed that I’m the same player that I was before, but at the same time I continue to have faith.”
A number of teams might consider rewarding that faith, presenting him with a belated b-day gift, which would simultaneously serve as a gift to their franchises and to fans.
I mentioned following the Chicago Bulls. Chicago now has a squad that’s surprising hoop heads with their consistency and toughness after acquiring guys like Lonzo Ball, Alex Caruso, Nikola Vučević and DeMar DeRozan (who’s playing at an MVP-caliber level alongside fellow All-Star Zach LaVine). Coach Billy Donovan doesn’t exactly need to beef up his roster, though he and the Bulls would benefit from players returning to the lineup during this injury-and-protocol-plagued season.
The Clips, the other team I try to watch regularly, have been even more disadvantaged by injuries. Leonard continues to recover from his ACL tear and subsequent surgery, and the team’s second best player, Paul George, is still out with an elbow injury. Coach Ty Lue has helped keep his team around .500 by granting reserve players chances to step into the limelight and by giving Reggie “Mr. Big Shot” Jackson the green light to take and, as in the early February game against the Lakers, make the game winning shot. Jackson exuded so much confidence as he prepared to close out the game that he skipped up the court.
Lue, who like Thomas has been part of the 6-foot-and-under crop of talent to play in the NBA, could surely find a role for IT in his system. If any head coach help Thomas return to his erstwhile glory as an offensively potent guard with a high basketball IQ, it’s probably him. When the Clips brought on former All-Star and NBA champion Rajon Rondo to fulfill some of the team’s point guard duties, it didn’t work out so well. But the Clips could still use a guard who can handle the ball and set up or free up the other four guys in action, and the Clips could right their previous wrong by giving Thomas a belated birthday gift — the shot he should’ve received back in 2020. Thomas would make an apropos addition to the scrappy Clips squad that under Lue’s tutelage has hovered just above the Lakers in the Western Conference standings this season.
“Hopefully somebody makes the right decision,” Thomas said when he spoke with ESPN’s Jalen & Jacoby. “I promise you I’ll make ‘em look like a genius.”
To be sure, in basketball as in life, height makes a difference, but it doesn’t determine outcome. Being shorter than most every other man in one’s vicinity is harder than some probably realize. You learn what it’s like to be dismissed. The lessons come repeatedly. People count you out, disrespect you and intentionally, if also perhaps instinctually, try to diminish your sense of self-worth and eviscerate your manhood, in most all walks of life within the established order, but especially in sport.
Thomas has been through it all before. The Sacramento Kings selected him 60th overall with the last pick in the 2011 NBA Draft.
“That was the longest day of my life,” Thomas remembered as he spoke to Barnes and Jackson.
After a successful college career which included a game winning shot to secure the 2011 Pac-10 (now Pac-12) championship for the Washington Huskies, experts projected Thomas to be an early second round pick, he recalled. The 20 or so workouts he had with NBA times prior to the draft ostensibly solidified his chances of getting drafted earlier than he did.
“I destroyed dudes,” he said in that sit-down interview on the ‘All the Smoke’ podcast. “I destroyed ‘em. I destroyed ‘em, and I’m not even going to sugar coat it. I destroyed ‘em, and that’s why it was frustrating on draft night because I’m like, ‘Dang, what else do they want?’”
We could pose the same rhetorical question to many NBA coaches and executives today who remain too timid to pull the trigger and sign him.
Heart over Height
This past November, NBA TV premiered a new documentary, “Muggsy: Always Believe,” a film about Tyrone “Muggsy” Bogues, the shortest player in NBA history at 5’3” when he ran the point for teams like the Charlotte Hornets in the nineties. A number of decision makers in the NBA didn’t think Muggsy belonged in the league, but opposing coaches and players learned otherwise; his unparalleled quickness, penchant for stealing the ball right from under bigger men and his refusal to back down garnered him respect, accolades and famously a small role in the original Space Jam (1996) film. Bogues recently unveiled motivational t-shirts with messages like, “Tall or small, the game is for all,” “Never back down” (showing the short-statured Bogues beside Michael Jordan, the widely-revered GOAT), and “You can’t teach heart.”
Coaches and execs would do well to study the inspirational messaging on those tees. Thomas, who admittedly has some six inches on Bogues, doesn’t need to. For his part, IT has his own apparel line featuring a graphic t-shirt reminding everyone, “It’s a marathon,” not a sprint.
Having dealt with a size disadvantage in a sport that privileges size, having proved himself an All-Star after barely getting drafted, having played through pain mixed with grief and having climbed his way back into the NBA following a major operation, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who would outright deny his grit, determination and heart.
As he alluded to in that interview on “All the Smoke,” he knows his kids watch him and learn from their father, which is motivation enough not to be deterred by obstacles those who relish in towering over you often aren’t even in position to see or acknowledge, let alone understand.
“There’s no quit in me,” Thomas added without any hesitation.