Kyrie Irving asked the Cavaliers to trade him

Turner and Sullinger were by most metrics key defenders and Olynyk dropped off after what was probably a fluke season, the team as a whole dropped off across the board shot blocking actually, and Horford is not a great defensive player really especially when he starts rebounding like Cliff Robinson and he hates having to man the back line, having someone like Amir or Josh Smith assisting him with clean up duty is different. Turner was especially strong in a Iguodala type way of being able to guard across positions.

I think the key is that we have two seasons on either side of that top five finish where they were mediocre at best, and it's not like they're adding better defenders with each season, they're moving sideways or getting clearly worse (Amir -> Morris) and yet nobody is talking about this from what I've seen.

Isn't that why it's worrisome. Effective undersized players becoming sudden minus contributors in supposed prime and capable years(agewise) regardless of the issues, minor or major. In fact, Isaiah could be looking at to become a first undersized guy in a long time(since Stockton?) to play at high level entering the 30s. Or derailed as that's where the concern lies at the moment.

Stockton wouldn't be undersized. Neither is Lawson technically.

I wasn't pointing out undersized players "suddenly" becoming minus players I was saying there's never been a player like Thomas, period. Calvin Murphy 40 years ago is the only thing even close. And even he wasn't putting in buckets like Thomas has for multiple seasons. We simply don't have a comparable player. Really, of many sizes, let alone under six foot.

There are a number of sub six foot guards who played as well as they always did through 28 and into their 30s, but none of them were really All-Stars or had other issues like Damon Stoudamire or Nate Robinson. My use of Brandon cut out the years before Brandon had his career ending injury as before and after he never scored even close to Thomas and he was still not yet 30.

Guards hitting the wall at 30 is still a thing but it's been diminished since the rule changes and medical advances. Iverson actually arguably played better until he got to Detroit. Tim Hardaway had his best run after age 28. Chris Paul hasn't dropped off before 30, neither did Mookie Blaylock. Kevin Johnson had effectively a second career after 28. Darrel Armstrong's entire career was after 28. Mike Conley seems to be aging fine.

And Thomas isn't yet even there, him hitting 30 is still two years away, not this season which is the only season that matters for both the Cavs and Celtics because they're both going to be using him as a one year rental scorer for the most part.

You could be right. Their defense could decline while their offense keeps up, and thatz gotta be enuf to bring the Celtics down from #1 to #5. I was kinda expecting more balanced drop offs in both offense and defense ratings. I guess we both at least could agree they wont win 50 games again next season either way.


Isaiah indeed is uniquely stellar. I've not seen anyone of his caliber at such size. But that is also the why the concern is greater I guess besides being one year rental. Perhaps his drowned playoffs numbers also contributed.

That said, if he is gonna be hampered by injury, that means he will offer little to no value to the Cavs.

Is this really the case of koby Altman just trying to squeeze more assets out of Ainge?

Altman is a snake if this indeed is true. IMO I think this is unlikely. The Cavs are the ones who have more to lose on this one getting voided. The lux tax, disgruntled Irving, etc

I am curious to the exact nature of IT's injury. I remember bo jackson injuring his hip in his prime and it ultimately ended his NFL career but I think it was a different injury and he even played with the white sox

Called it:

With a Thursday morning deadline looming, the Boston Celtics agreed to send the Cleveland Cavaliers a 2020 second-round draft pick via the Miami Heat to acquire four-time All-Star guard Kyrie Irving and complete the blockbuster trade, league sources said.

All things considered, even if IT does not pan out in Cleveland. The Cavs still got the sweet end of the deal. Kyrie was sure he was leaving the team. Now they have acquired resources to rebuild in case Lebron walks away in the off-season.

Opening night's going to be fun.

All things considered, even if IT does not pan out in Cleveland. The Cavs still got the sweet end of the deal. Kyrie was sure he was leaving the team. Now they have acquired resources to rebuild in case Lebron walks away in the off-season.

this is why all they were ever going to get was a worthless 2nd round pick. everyone who said the cavs had the upperhand here sounded stupid as hell. this was by far the best deal they were going to get for him. if i was the celtics i would not even have sent the pick but in the long run it wont matter anyway

I Like this koby altman

Thankfully the trade got done. Back to the off season/ hello nfl

This is interesting. Melo should give the Cavs a 2nd look now that the Cavs have more assets to pull off the Knicks trade. Perhaps we could see Isaiah/Melo/LeBron/Love/Thompson line up.

what would they trade to get melo. there is no way the cavs trade the brooklyn pick without lebron signing an extension so whats left that the knicks would actually want

Do you Celtics fans not think Butler would have been nicer addition to the team than Irving or 100% satisfied with the way things panned out this offseason.

is that a rhetorical question? ainge could crap on a waffle and a lot of celtic fans would eat it up and ask for seconds

is that a rhetorical question? ainge could crap on a waffle and a lot of celtic fans would eat it up and ask for seconds

Do you Celtics fans not think Butler would have been nicer addition to the team than Irving or 100% satisfied with the way things panned out this offseason.

is the choise between butler/thomas/bradley vs irving/hayward/tatum? if so i am happy. you can go back to my previous posts where i said i did not want them to trade for butler so for me this is an obvious question. how happy i am about this trade will depend on 2 things, how brooklyn plays this season and if irving signs long term. i am happy to have traded thomas which people should know by now since i have said it in as many threads as possible. i have wanted to trade him for a long time

IT saying he may never talk to Ainge again and that he should have sat out the playoffs due to his injured hip.

thoughts by Celtics fans? Novu, the new Cavs bandwagoner?

IT saying he may never talk to Ainge again and that he should have sat out the playoffs due to his injured hip.

thoughts by Celtics fans? Novu, the new Cavs bandwagoner?

I don't blame him for being bitter and pissed off. He felt his home was in Boston, he loved it. I don't think he had any idea he would be traded after the season he just had.

In regards to saying he should have sat out the playoffs, that's part of him still being pissed. He says that, but in the moment he has to much heart and fire to sit out, he pushes himself to the limit.

and on the other side Kyrie Irving is saying it's nice finally be in a sports city. ba zing. see joakim noah had it right
gotta love this stuff.

IT's comments led to some interesting debate on ESPN. Paul Pierce, who of course was traded by the Celtics after fifteen seasons, basically found a diplomatic way of saying Thomas is entitled to that point of view, but should also suck it up. Chauncey Billups, who's been traded a lot more in his career (including by the Celtics halfway through his rookie season), had a rather terse reply, and referred to Pierce asking out of Boston. Pierce responded that he didn't want to be traded but knew he would be, and therefore gave preferences as to the destination. The whole conversation was a bit testy.

Thomas' feelings are understandable, and he's far from the first player to express those sentiments after being traded unexpectedly. At some point, the healthy thing to do when any personal or professional relationship breaks down is to move on and let it go, but that's not to say that reconciliation is always feasible, or for that matter, desirable. Thomas will have to figure that out himself, and in the meantime, he probably will feel a little bitter; again, understandably so. For his part, Ainge has to do what he has to do in terms of making tough decisions in building the roster, so I imagine from his point of view, it's a case of "so be it".

IT is over valuing himself as a franchise player and feels he deserves to be treated like one. he has every right to be mad but the idea that a busted up 5'9 pg is untouchable is obscured

IT's comments led to some interesting debate on ESPN. Paul Pierce, who of course was traded by the Celtics after fifteen seasons, basically found a diplomatic way of saying Thomas is entitled to that point of view, but should also suck it up. Chauncey Billups, who's been traded a lot more in his career (including by the Celtics halfway through his rookie season), had a rather terse reply, and referred to Pierce asking out of Boston. Pierce responded that he didn't want to be traded but knew he would be, and therefore gave preferences as to the destination. The whole conversation was a bit testy.

Pierce is having some favorable career recollections on what otherwise has probably been ESPN's best formation of a studio team since they got the NBA rights. Even if Billups and Jalen are carrying the load.

Worse was saying he'd always have taken Drummond over Anthony Davis. When I'm not sure that's even a defensible position now let alone in 2012.

But he wanted to be traded before the deal to the Nets, before they got Ray Allen, Pierce wanted out of Boston and said so often. He didn't want to wait on Al Jefferson, Rondo, etc.

Jalen is their Shaq still. And they need to find an Ernie.

I vaguely remember that; I guess he's glossing over it now. It's also possible by 2014, he did indeed want to retire a Celtic, and is being honest about giving his preferences despite not wanting to leave by that point.

can't get on board with Jalen. kudos to his enthusiasm

poor IT. the guy just wants to get paid.

IT nearing 30, I doubt anyone will pay him anything near MAX. Too bad because he always showed big signs/potential, just never given proper chance to prove what he can do at early stage in his career. Finally the Celtics presented him the perfect opportunity, he does an amazing job, then dump him to wasteland called Cleveland. "Hurt", I am not too surprised IT feels that way. It's not just the Celtics. But this guy's been treated as shit by all teams he's been on. Perhaps more hurt with the Celtics because of success there.

Good to see some sympathy for IT. He has a bit of a douche bag (last time I heard an interview from him, he was talking about the other team playing no defense in a game in which he committed 6 turnovers), but I was so hoping for him to prove people online wrong. For a while there, while many critics were saying he hadn't improved much since Cleveland, he had a true shooting percent of 59%, which was only 1% behind Randle for the Lakers based on season averages and 3% below his peak in 2016-17 and the figure was rising with each and every game. He was doing this, playing reasonably efficiently, because of his getting to the foul line and hitting at a 90% clip. Then, he suddenly stopped doing it. While I felt like I made a fool of myself online talking about the fact that he was playing efficient basketball, suddenly he stopped getting to the line. All that was left was abysmal field goal percentages and worse, he was no longer getting the assists he was getting.

Maybe it was the injury. His decline may have started in the conference finals last year, 4 games from the end when he posted similar shooting figures to 2017-18 from a date he was said to have aggravated his hip. He may have been hiding the extent of it in case he scared off offers. But there is also the possibility he is simply making excuses for his play in 2017-18. His surgery may have been an attempt to convince people this year was injury affected when it wasn't.

While his play may not have improved much since Cleveland based on overall stats, there were two things that didn't happen in LA that happened in Cleveland: the Lakers defense didn't collapse and neither did the team chemistry, although one team mate appears to have wanted to hit him over his criticism of their play. Indeed, it is possible the Lakers may have played better with Isaiah. While Isaiah was second highest for a short time on the team in TS% based on season averages, during the same period he wasn't normally top 4 in the team because everyone else was playing so well around him. (Bear in mind that the Kevin Love situation in Cleveland was largerly Dwyane Wade's fault, not Isaiah Thomas, although Thomas was blamed; some suggestion also Kevin Love was partly responsible for declining to answer their questions before it esculated.)

Before he returned, I also felt this rehabiliation option without surgery sounded bogus. It sounds almost like herbal medicine. Don't know what he was thinking.