The Boston Celtics found themselves in middle of a rock and a hard place with Feb. 11 approaching. The team will host the Cleveland Cavaliers that night, and in what should be a pretty cool scene, the Celtics will retire Boston legend Paul Pierce‘s jersey number. However, the team also wanted to show a brief tribute video for another former player, as that will be the first time Isaiah Thomas plays in Boston since he was traded.
This led to an awkward situation where Pierce was adamant that he did not want to share his night with someone else. This was especially the case because Thomas returned to Boston earlier this season but did not play due to the way the Cavs were handling his return to the floor, which led to him requesting that the Celtics didn’t honor him. On Tuesday, the situation resolved itself, when Thomas tweeted that he wanted the Celtics to put the video on the shelves and honor Pierce without any distractions.
Pierce believes he knows why we got to this point, and in his eyes, it all stems from the fact that the Celtics’ breakup with Thomas was rather messy. The future Hall of Fame inductee spoke to Jackie MacMullan and Chris Forsberg of ESPN about the minor controversy, and said he believes all of this is driven out of the guilt felt by the organization.
“(Thomas) had a shot to be honored,” Pierce said. “You came to Boston. Whether you are playing or not, you should have had your tribute then. I just don’t see how, if someone is having a jersey retirement, they’re going to be running other tributes for other players.
“Danny tried to sell me on it, but I told him, ‘He had a shot, Danny, and he punked you on it. He pretty much dictated everything.’ They let it happen because they felt sorry how (the trade to Cleveland) went down. It’s guilt. That’s what it is.”
As we’ve seen and heard from Thomas, he was really upset after the Celtics flipped him to Cleveland for Kyrie Irving. Whether that drove the team’s desire to air a tribute video or not remains to be seen, but to Pierce’s delight, this entire saga is now in the past.
