The Boston Celtics are the second-best team in the Eastern Conference, but it may be time to trade Isaiah Thomas
ICYMI, old buddies Zach Lowe and Bill Simmons got together twice as guests on each other’s podcasts last week. Both were great listens. (Seriously Simmons…you constantly complain about Mike and the Dog breaking up. You and Lowe not doing regular pods is almost as egregious.)
On the Lowe Post, they touched on an interesting question that no one has really been talking about…yet: should the Boston Celtics re-sign Isaiah Thomas for the max next summer?
Both Lowe and Simmons agreed on two points. First, it would it be unwise to give a 5-foot-9 point guard (who is apparently closer to 5-foot-7 in reality) a max deal that would pay him around $45 million in the last season, when he’ll be 34 years old.
Second, the Boston Celtics should and likely will explore trade scenarios for Thomas either this summer or next February, especially if they land a top two pick this June.
This is anything but crazy, for a number of reasons. Let’s go through them one by one…
The Player
To say Isaiah Thomas is having an amazing season is an understatement. He’s likely to finish either fifth or sixth in the MVP balloting, will make Second Team All-NBA, and is averaging thirty freaking points a game.
Thomas is not only having one of the most statistically effective seasons for a guard ever, but he’s doing it efficiently as well. He’s 10th in the league in true shooting percentage, one spot ahead of James Harden, two ahead of LeBron James, and three ahead of Steph Curry. Go back and look at the numbers from Allen Iverson‘s MVP season, and Thomas beats them in virtually every category…except one.
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Defense? We talkin’ bout defense?
Iverson, along with every other guard who has ever been in MVP discussions, was at least physically capable of holding his own on the defensive end of the floor. Thomas may very well be the hardest worker of them all, but at 185 pounds soaking wet, he’s simply limited on defense in ways that can’t be hidden against great teams.
The numbers back it up: his defensive box plus / minus rate is -3.4 according to Basketball Reference. It’s not a perfect stat (notorious gambler Russell Westbrook is third in the league), but it gives an indication of just how much the team struggles defensively when he’s on the floor.
So what? Who cares that Thomas is a minus on defense, as long as he keeps making magic on the other end of the floor? Ask Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors that question. For seven games, the Cavs had the two-time reigning MVP switching on every conceivable pick and roll. We saw it wear him down before our very eyes, and by the end of that series, he was completely drained on both ends of the court.
Curry has at least six inches on Thomas, and we haven’t seen a team try to expose IT to that degree in a prolonged playoff bout…yet. As long as Thomas is on the floor, there may be a ceiling to how competitive the Boston Celtics can be against the best teams in the league over a seven game series. Despite Thomas’ offensive brilliance, Boston may have to consider the possibility that it will never measure up against the teams they’ll need to beat to win it all as long as he is on the floor.
The Options
The Celtics/Nets trade that has provided Boston with all the joys of tanking without any of the unsightly losing is like the relationship in the popular kid’s book, The Giving Tree. The Nets have no more apples, are about to lose all of their branches, and next year their trunk. Brook Lopez and Co. can only hope that after the Celtics have had a wild ride at their expense, they return to sit on their stump in Downtown Brooklyn.
The odds of this all falling into place just as it has are almost unfathomable. The Celtics are faced with the looming Isaiah Thomas decision just as the two best point guard prospects since John Wall are sitting atop everyone’s draft boards. If they do end up with Fultz or Ball, how much harder does it make their decision?
On the downside, naturally, it’s impossible to know whether Fultz or Ball will ever be as good as Thomas offensively. It takes only a cursory glance at the standings to know that a point guard who can drive, move the ball effectively, and knock it down from outside is virtually a prerequisite to contend. Would the Celtics want to take the somewhere between 10 and 40 percent chance that Ball or Fultz never get to that level, especially when they have a team so close to winning right now?
That question comes down to just how close the Boston Celtics really are at the moment, versus what an alternative future without Thomas might look like.
The Timeline
On one hand, it’s tempting to say that the Boston Celtics are a win-now team. After all, their two best players are 28 (Thomas) and 30 (Al Horford). Horford is at the tail end of his prime while Thomas is right in the middle. Boston is one LeBron James ankle tweak away from being the East favorite this year. Most teams wouldn’t think twice and would re-sign Thomas at whatever he wants on this point alone.
Hardwood Houdini
But the Celtics aren’t most teams, and Danny Ainge isn’t most GM’s. Yes, Ainge is the same GM who traded away youth once before to load up on over-30 stars, but that was a unique situation. When Kevin Garnett becomes available, you go get Kevin Garnett (well, unless you’re the Nets). Danny didn’t flinch and got rewarded with a championship. The Celtics have the goods to do a version of that trade this summer, whether it be for Jimmy Butler, Paul George, or some other as-yet-unknown superstar.
Even if they do decide to move on from Thomas, they still might pull the trigger, but there is a reason Ainge didn’t make such a move at the deadline.
The Present
Perhaps no team in the modern history of the league has been as uniquely positioned to attain the long-term status of full-fledged contender as the Celtics are right now. Avery Bradley and Jae Crowder, both a sliver below All-Star caliber, are 26. Marcus Smart, someone who screams “winning player” on both ends of the court, just turned 23. Terry Rozier is also 23 and is regularly playing over twenty minutes a night. Jaylen Brown won’t be old enough to drink until next season and depending on which reports you believe, may already be considered untouchable by the Celtics, which tells us everything we need to know about his ceiling.
The Future
These are just the young, proven players on the current roster. Boston also has the aforementioned Nets pick, next year’s Nets pick (sure to be in the top 10), and future picks from the Clippers (heavily projected) and Memphis (lightly protected). Ante Zizic and Guerschon Yabusele are two highly touted prospects currently stashed overseas. Oh, and if they did decide to move on from Thomas? You can bet the haul will be substantial.
All told, if the Celtics play this the right way – and with Ainge at the helm, you can trust they will – they’ll be set up to content for the next decade.
But contending isn’t the same as winning. If the Celtics make it far this year – as in, Game 7 of the East Finals far – would even Ainge be able to stomach the idea of taking the most important player off of a team that has something like a 35 percent chance to win the whole darn thing at some point over the next 3-4 seasons? At that point, don’t you re-sign Thomas, go get Jimmy Butler, and roll the dice?
Its an impossible decision, but here’s the thing: if you pay Thomas, there might not be enough money left to fill out the rest of what the Celtics hope is a championship roster.
The Money
The NBA’s salary cap is slated to go up to about $102 million next season, and while no official projections have been released further out than that, it’s safe to assume that the cap will stay in that general range. Looking ahead to the summer of 2018 when Thomas will hit free agency, the Celtics will only have about $37.5 million on the books, according to Hoopshype, which doesn’t sound like a lot…except when you consider that it’s just for two players.
Horford will be due about $29 million in 2018-19, while Jae Crowder will still be criminally underpaid at just over $7 million.
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After that is where it gets messy, as Bradley and Smart will be up for new deals in 2018 as well. We can conservatively estimate Bradley’s next contract starting in the $20 million annual range, while Marcus Smart, a restricted free agent, will clock in at around $15 million per. If the team doesn’t deal away Crowder (who may be a deal-breaker in any Butler/George trade), they can probably afford to let one of Bradley or Smart walk.
Even then, a core of whichever one remains plus Crowder, Horford, and Thomas (now inked to a new deal starting north of $30 million) will eat up between $85-$90 million of the cap. That’s a lot for a core that doesn’t guarantee you a thing.
But wait…they’ll have George, Butler, Hayward, Griffin or whoever else they end up getting with assets and/or cap space. At that point, you’re looking at a capped-out team for the foreseeable future that might be good enough to make a Finals or two. Again, most teams would sign for this without thinking twice. The Celtics have to think differently.
Capped-Out
If they re-sign Thomas and sign Hayward or Griffin, their salaries plus Horford essentially take up the whole cap. That means Bradley is gone, and maybe Smart too, in order to put together something like the third best team in the league with a collective core on the downside of their careers.
The alternative is to trade for George or Butler. In either scenario, one Nets pick is gone, plus two really good current rotation players. The team will still be capped out, and still be too top heavy to be guaranteed anything.
Of course, nothing in the NBA is guaranteed. Just ask the Thunder. But in every scenario in which Thomas is brought back, the Boston Celtics seem to come up just short.
The Verdict
For the Boston Celtics, it doesn’t have to end like this. If they don’t re-sign Thomas, that gives them incredible flexibility, whether it be to bring back both Bradley and Smart, or make another move. Whether they truly will have the luxury to do this largely depends on how the ping pong balls bounce in May.
The Celtics have about a 50/50 shot to land a top 2 pick this year, which is what it will take to nab either Fultz or Ball. If they hit, they’d be faced with two options. Ask yourself which one sounds better:
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A) Sign your 29 year old point guard starting the downside of his career to a max deal, trade some of your assets to get another star, and hope Fultz or Lonzo can work off-ball next to Thomas. Roll into the next 5 years with your young guard, Isaiah, Butler/George, one of Crowder/Smart/Bradley, Jaylen Brown, Horford, and not much else, or…
B) Let Fultz or Ball – 18 and 19 years old, respectively – run your team for the next dozen years alongside Jaylen Brown, Marcus Smart, and whoever you pick at the top of next year’s draft, sign a Hayward or a Griffin this summer, keep Crowder and Bradley around for the rest of their 20’s, let Horford play out his prime, and trade Thomas this summer another young asset and/or future picks.
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The Boston Celtics have an opportunity unlike any team in the league has had in a while. How they decide to proceed will likely shape the face of the league for the foreseeable future as LeBron finally exits his prime and the Eastern Conference goes up for grabs. The Celtics are already the leader in the clubhouse. With some guts, they’ll maintain that status for a very, very long time.