Short answer: Yes. Isaiah Thomas is worth a max contract, despite his deficiencies on defense. Whether you like him or not, given today’s NBA, Isaiah Thomas is a max player and the Celtics should give him loot.
Long answer: On the outside, the Celtics look like they’re all over the place. Are they rebuilding? Are they still rebuilding? Are they pushing to contend now? Are they pushing to contend later? Well, we all know what the Finals matchup will be for the next four-ish years, so it’s kind of hard to contend right this second. The Celtics know that as an organization.
But, just because there are other great teams out there doesn’t mean you shouldn’t put your best foot forward every single year. Who knows, Golden State could suffer a catastrophic injury or something. Maybe the Cavs have another late-season meltdown. Anything can happen. If you have the opportunity to better your roster, you better your roster.
One thing we know for sure, though, is that Isaiah Thomas is blatantly the Celtics’ guy. And, the feeling is mutual: Isaiah Thomas is committed to Boston and wants to be here for the long run. As last season progressed and as Thomas continued to prove himself as one of the better scorers in all of the NBA, it became more and more clear that the Celtics want to build around IT. They’re already beginning to do just that.
When Danny Ainge traded the beloved Avery Bradley to Detroit, it appeared to be set in stone that Boston wants The Little Guy around here for a while. And rightfully so. Thomas improved his PPG by 6.7 points this past season, raising it to nearly 30 PPG, good for the league’s third leading scorer. He finished fifth in MVP voting. He came in clutch every single night, putting on an absolute show seemingly every time the fourth quarter rolled around. He played through the sudden tragic death of his sister mere hours after he got the news at the start of the postseason. Not to mention, if it wasn’t for Thomas, Al Horford and Gordon Hayward wouldn’t be Celtics. He helped make Boston a free agent destination and flipped the historic script.
The lone reason why we even need to discuss whether or not Boston should max Thomas is the fact that he’s, essentially, a liability on defense. If he played even middling defense, the Brink’s truck would already have backed up by now. The Celtics are nine points better defensively when Thomas is off the court. He’s one of the worst qualified defenders in the league, statistically speaking. When you really think about it, the number of teams that would gladly take Thomas is eye-opening. Any team would kill to have a point guard like Thomas that puts up 30 points a game and singlehandedly wins games. You can deal with his below-average defense if you surround him with the right players.
While Thomas is a max player, in an ideal world, the Celtics should give Thomas just less than a true max deal. If Boston goes all in and supermaxes Thomas, there’s serious risk that can potentially come with it. One, Thomas is 28, turning 29 next season. It’s not smart to give a player who is past his prime a max deal, especially long-term. Can and will Thomas place fifth in MVP voting for four more years? No, probably not. Two, Thomas suffered a hip injury that knocked him out of the playoffs at the end. While surgery is unlikely, hip injuries are no joke. There’s no set timetable for his return and they can linger for some time.
Given today’s NBA and some of the insane contracts teams are handing out (IE: Steph Curry, James Harden), Thomas won’t take less than a max deal, and rightfully so. He’s a proven scoring threat against anybody, anywhere. It would be stupid of him to accept anything less. But, if the Celtics are smart, they will at least attempt to convince Thomas that the true stars in sports take less money to help the team around them and put together the best squad that they can.
Once the Celtics traded away the aforementioned Avery Bradley, it was a fairly clear sign that the Celtics are willing to max Thomas, and possibly even supermax him. The Celtics know that if they let him walk after next season and break the bank elsewhere, it will be a terrible look for the franchise as a whole. Turmoil would most likely arise and it would, once more, become difficult to lure in free agents.
The most important piece of them all in this discussion: if the Celtics are willing to max this player in Isaiah Thomas, they need to wait until after the 2017-18 season. It would be entirely dumb of the team to max him now rather than later, given Thomas’ hip injury. How do we know whether or not he will be the same coming off of this injury? There are many variables like so that are attached to Thomas at this point in time. Let this coming season play out, see how Thomas fits with a player like Hayward and how he responds to sharing the ball, see how this hip injury affects him, if at all, etc, etc. I find it difficult to envision a scenario where Thomas falls into a black abyss this season, but anything is possible. If I were the Celtics, I would let Thomas do thing this season and then reward him afterwards.
It’s in the organization’s best interest to go for it and max Isaiah Thomas. Now, it’s abnormal to have three max players on one team (Horford, Hayward, Thomas), especially for a team like the Celtics and the place that they are right now, but it’s what’s best, at the end of the day. While Hayward is the best player on the Celtics, Thomas is the face of the Celtics. He’s as talented as they come, he’s lovable, he’s a threat, and he’s always hungry. In a perfect world, Thomas accepts less and gives the organization a bit of wiggle room money-wise, but having multiple max-worthy players on one team isn’t the worst problem to have in the world. The Celtics have the money to back up the Brink’s truck and reward their Little Guy.
This has always been and will always be my theory: if you believe that Kyrie Irving is a max player, then Isaiah Thomas is too a max player.
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