Kellerman: "Celtics Need To Trade Isaiah Thomas"

ESPN's Max Kellerman prefaces his argument by stating that Isaiah Thomas is probably his favorite player in the NBA, so this not coming from a "hater." I mean how can you not root for Isaiah?

Kellerman's two main quotes are:

A title team can not have as it's best player a high usage point guard who can't defend, and will soon be making max money.

The Celtics should not trade Isaiah Thomas because they won Game 3 without him. They should trade Isaiah Thomas because they'll get better if they do.

If there was no salary cap, you'd obviously hang on to Isaiah. The problem arises when you are trying to build a championship contender and only can afford so many max contracts. The problem arises when you'd no longer have Avery Bradley, Marcus Smart, and Jae Crowder on cheap contracts and you risk losing the very guys that help to hide Isaiah's glaring defensive deficiencies.

An ideal backcourt would be Fultz at the 1 and Bradley at the 2, with them switching on defensive assignments. Then you'd have IT4 as the 6th man as instant offense off the bench. Think the Microwave or Jamal Crawford on steroids. Yeah good luck convincing Isaiah to re-sign to come off the bench. And also you can't pay a bench guy max dollars. A better fit at max dollars would be a forward. I won't even get into how Isaiah's game might age. Would we be giving max money to Philly Allen Iverson or Denver/Detroit Allen Iverson?

So while the idea sounds almost disrespectful, expect the thought of trading Isaiah Thomas to continue to come up in Danny Ainge's brain. He reportedly attempted to trade him last draft. It will be a lot harder for Ainge this summer due to Isaiah's increased popularity in Boston (Some Celtics fans would be LIVID. Then again the same issue was there the last couple years of Rajon Rondo's tenure in Boston and most fans eventually got over it after that trade) as well as his current injury issues.

Kellerman says the Celtics "need" to trade IT4. The need part might be hyperbole, No celtics fan is going to be depressed if Isaiah is back with the team next season or for many season to come. Would the Celtics benefit from exploring a trade? That's probably a yes.




Credit Tickett from our Shout Box for the video find.