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NBA Trade Deadline Madness: Celtics Somehow Land Isaiah Thomas in Suns’ PG Firesale

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What in the hell just happened? The NBA trade deadline has come and gone, and it seems like half of the league’s point guards have suddenly changed teams.

After rumors pegged the Boston Celtics as “contenders” for Goran Dragic and in on the Denver Nuggets’ Ty Lawson, Danny Ainge didn’t land either, as Dragic ended up with the Miami Heat and Lawson stayed put. But even after the Phoenix Suns offloaded their malcontent point guard, somehow, some way, Ainge managed to convince his former assistant and current Suns GM Ryan McDonough to part with a second of his three-headed point guard monster, Isaiah Thomas, just before the clock turned 3pm EST.

In exchange, the Celtics surrendered Marcus Thornton and the 2016 first round pick acquired from the Cleveland Cavaliers. Not bad, Danny. Not bad.

As prized an asset as Dragic might have been, he was essentially the Slovenian version of Rajon Rondo — a pending free agent uncertain to re-sign. The odds of Ainge giving up assets to watch Dragic walk away just like Rondo would have was always zero.  Thomas, much more attractively, comes to the Celtics already under contract for four years, $27 million, with the amount declining each of the next three years. Now the Celtics have their man that they tried to target in free agency before the Suns swooped in to execute a sign-and-trade with the Sacramento Kings, a move that ended up costing them two point guards instead of adding one. The Suns’ loss is the Celtics’ gain!

Thomas, who is averaging 15.2 points per game and 3.7 assists per game in his Phoenix time share this season, will now join Marcus Smart and Avery Bradley in the Celtics’ backcourt. Thomas gives the Celtics some much needed scoring punch, a ball-handling dynamo with the ability to create his own shot, especially out of the pick and roll. Remember, Thomas is just one year removed from averaging over 20 points and 6 assists with the Kings, where he didn’t have two other point guards dominating the ball. That’s a solid return on an expiring contract who probably didn’t fit into the Celtics’ future plans, and a first round pick almost certain to fall into the late 20s (as long as Lebron James feels the need to deliver that elusive championship to Cleveland, of course).

As ESPNBoston’s Chris Forsberg points out, this all stemmed from the trade exception created by trading Paul Pierce to the Brooklyn Nets. That in turn led to absorbing Thornton’s and Tyler Zeller’s contracts, and now the Celtics have finally landed a player that points the franchise towards something beyond rebuilding.

So whether the Celtics end up in the lottery or manage to secure the eight seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs (against stiff competition from the Heat and the Detroit Pistons, each with their own new point guard splashes), today’s deadline trade finally signals Ainge turning a corner. The question marks of lottery picks and the uncertainty of the rebuild has become a tangible, talented player that Celtics fans can latch onto.

Now all we can do is watch and wait to see how the chips fall from here. And, in the meantime, try to figure out how to spell “Isaiah.”


© Nick Bohlen for Sports of Boston, 2015. | Permalink | No comment
Filed under: Celtics, Featured, Opinion, Top Story.


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