Former Boston Celtics floor general Isaiah thomas has yet to find a team willing to take a chance on his surgically-repaired hip going into the 2020-21 NBA season, but for Celtics fans who hope for an IT – Boston reunion, former Phoenix Suns head coach Earl Watson thinks there may be irreconcilable differences.
Speaking with Brandon “Scoop B” Robinson on the “Heavy Live With Scoop B Show” podcast, Watson laid out his view on why that reunion is happening. While the former Washington Husky was long gone by the time Watson was hired by the club that traded the 5-foot-9 guard to the Celtics, he has enough experience on both sides of the clipboard to know the situation.
“This is a business,” he began, “and I think one thing that these teams from both sides to playing and coaching realize is the way that relationships ended.”
“I’m not sure if it ended on the right note. Players have human emotions, and when he sacrificed to play and continued to play on that hip for the Celtics and was not rewarded financially for the right or wrong reasons medically, and if that relationship is not healed, then it becomes a tough conversation to eventually reunite those two businesses together. And that’s what makes the NBA really unique — it’s about relationships. It’s not really about your city or how good your team is.”
“We have a relationship with players to build a sustainable product,” he added.
Jeff Teague says Celtics have ‘capability of going to the championship’ https://t.co/J3Ps01Y6I4
— The Celtics Wire (@TheCelticsWire) December 11, 2020
On Boston’s side, backing up the Brinks truck to pay a player unable to play moving forward was always an untenable business decision.
And, without all the information as to what exactly caused the injury and who was to blame for him continuing to play, it may be an unjust position to blame any individual or specific choice or moment, even if we’d like to have that luxury.
That said, Watson thinks there may yet be a team that makes sense to give the King in the Fourth one more shot — the Portland Trail Blazers.
WATCH: Celtics stashed guard Yam Madar goes for 18 vs Maccabi Rishon https://t.co/Nh2VLKudcM
— The Celtics Wire (@TheCelticsWire) December 11, 2020
“Off the bench behind Dame [Lillard] and CJ [McCollum],” he suggested.
“It … gives Portland a scoring punch that I think they desperately need. And when you think about Portland, they have two dominant scorers but they never had a third. And you cannot win in the NBA without a third dominant scorer who can get you from anywhere from 12 to 20 points any given night off the bench.”
We’d love to see IT get some run with the closest NBA team to his hometown of Tacoma; it might be a bit premature to call him a “dominant scorer” again before he’s had a chance to prove it, but if there’s anyone we want to see have a chance to do so, it’s Thomas.
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