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When Isaiah Thomas was with the Boston Celtics in the mid-2010s, he was one of the top scorers in the league and a key part of the Celtics team that made the Eastern Conference finals in 2016-17. However, his career took a sharp turn after he suffered a hip injury in 2017.
Thomas revealed the shocking details of how the Celtics handled his injury in an interview on the “Knuckleheads” podcast with former NBA players Quentin Richardson and Darius Miles.
In order to play in postseason in 2017 after suffering a bone bruise on his hip earlier in the season, Thomas repeatedly took cortisone shots in order to manage his pain under the impression that he could not re-injure himself or make his injury worse by playing. In the Eastern Conference Finals against the Cleveland Cavaliers, Thomas' hip pain got worse and a doctor revealed that the cortisone shots had damaged his cartilage and caused a new, more serious injury.
“I’m upset because at that point I put my career on the line for something that you could’ve just broke down to me and told me,” Thomas said. “It took me three years to get really back to who I am, and really figure out what was going on. It was a tough situation, it was a learning experience for myself. I’ve got real love for Boston and everybody in that organization, it was definitely the wrong way to go about things.”
“It sucks because so much was on the line, if I had gotten All-NBA that following year, I’m a super max guy, like I was eligible for the super max,” Thomas continued. “All of that is in play, when you look at it like that, that s—t sucks. But at the end of the day you live and you learn, you make mistakes, you make decisions. I’ve got no hard feelings. At that point it hurt, because I put my career on the line and then you trade me too.”
Isaiah Thomas' career post-injury
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Thomas was having a career year in 2016-17 before getting injured, averaging 28.9 points per game, earning a spot on the All-NBA Second Team and finishing fifth in MVP voting. Since then, the 5-9 point guard has never come close to recapturing what he showed pre-injury.
After the postseason wrapped up in 2017, instead of rewarding Thomas with a contract extension, Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge traded Thomas to the Cavaliers in a deal centered around Kyrie Irving. Continuing to deal with the hip injury, Thomas was then traded to the Los Angeles Lakers in the middle of the season. He underwent hip surgery after the 2017-18 season, and has bounced around the NBA and G League since, having stints with the Denver Nuggets, Washington Wizards, New Orleans Pelicans, Lakers, Dallas Mavericks, Charlotte Hornets and most recently with the Phoenix Suns.
Thomas is currently trying to land with an NBA team, and has recently had tryouts with the Sacramento Kings, where he began his career and the Milwaukee Bucks.
