Isaiah Thomas. This time last year everyone in the league knew about his story. We knew that he was the last pick in the 2011 draft. We knew he bounced around from team to team even though he didn’t play bad for any team. Then he went to Boston and became “the guy” for them. In the 2016-2017 season, he averaged 29 points per game for the number 1 seed in the East. He then played through a serious hip injury for the better of the team. And then he even played after his sister suddenly passed away in car accident. Even though he was shut down in the Eastern Conference Finals, everyone was an Isaiah Thomas fan because of his story and everything he went through. Thomas even started coming out publicly talking about his contract expiring and saying he expected max contract type of money. He was quoted saying “They know they’ve got to bring out the Brinks truck out.” For those of you who don’t know, A Brinks truck is the large truck that carries large amounts of money usually to and from banks. Obviously by that statement, Thomas expected to be a Celtic and to have a large payday coming his way in a about a year.

Then Isaiah Thomas’ world was turned completely upside down. Danny Ainge pulled arguably the most cold-hearted move in the history of the NBA. He shipped Isaiah off to Cleveland for Kyrie Irving. Everyone was stunned that the deal happened. After everything Isaiah went through for the organization and all the hard work, he was just shipped off to another team. Even people could see that he was heartbroken by the trade. However, there were serious questions about the future of his game. His hip injury was very serious and nobody knew if he would be able to come back the player he was before. So much of his game was surrounded by quickness and explosiveness and without both of those, he would never be able to make it in the league being a 5’8″ point guard. Without his athleticism, he is not an offensive threat. Without his offense, he might as well be useless on the floor because he just flat out can’t guard anyone in the league. Then to pay a player that has that many doubts max money is taking a huge risk.

Even though there was all of this surrounding Isaiah, people were still hopeful. He was going to a team that had been to three straight finals and had the best player in the world in LeBron James. Isaiah came out and talked about how him and LeBron were going to be this great duo because all Isaiah needed was someone on his team who the other team respected so he could have some space to operate. And, a lot of people bought into the fact that this would work. I was always skeptical of the fact that two guys who needed the ball in their hands couldn’t have the ball at the same time. And the fact that neither one complimented the other when they were off ball. Neither one of them has been known for their spot up shooting. But, people still believed. Then when the Cavs started struggling, people thought that once Isaiah came back everything would be fine because LeBron just needed another guy. But, the Cavs needed was a defensive stopper and someone they could rely on on that end of the floor. All of the Cavs problems were going to go away when Isaiah came back. However, they didn’t. Isaiah didn’t fit in with the Cavs. There were moments where it looked like the Cavs were going to be fine and Isaiah was going to work well with them. Yet, the fit never worked out fully, Isaiah shot a dismal 36% from the floor and then an even worse 25% from three in his short tenure with the Cavs. To make matters worse, there were locker room problems. The Cavs seemed fatigued emotionally and mentally as a squad. Reports came out that they had a team meeting and players were calling one another out and Isaiah had a lot to say. Coming from the guy who had only played a limited number of games and wasn’t even part of the team for a full year had to be hard to hear for the the other plays.

All of this came to an end when the Cavs made trades left and right to clear the air. Isaiah was shipped off the Lakers with Channing Frye to get back Jordan Clarkson and Larry Nance. Isaiah didn’t stop there and said that he wouldn’t come off the bench. Obviously, his voice was not heard in the Lakers organization because he only started one out of the seventeen games he played for them this season. His numbers remained practically the same for the Lakers. Isaiah was eventually shut down for the remainder of the season to get his hip to 100%. This pretty much ended any talk about Isaiah. Probably one of the first times someone who had been in the media so much went to LA and got out of the spotlight.

Here we are now. Free Agency has been open for practically a week and there has been zero rumors about a team neither signing or wanting Isaiah. For a guy to climb the mountain and put in all the work that Isaiah did it has to be tough. The rug was pulled out underneath him and his appeal to teams is nothing like it was a year ago. It’s hard as an NBA fan to see a guy rise to the top to only be there for a short period of time. The small guy with all of the heart and passion giving the work to the best players in the world to have his career take a big blow like this is hard to watch. It should be interesting to see where Isaiah is playing next year and if he can help that team, but for now Isaiah is just another free agent looking for another chance to make it in the league.