Isaiah Thomas Reportedly Rubbed Some Teammates The Wrong Way In Boston

The Boston Celtics made a huge move in trading for Kyrie Irving on Tuesday. The move gives the Celtics a formidable offensive trio of Irving, Gordon Hayward, and Al Horford, and swaps the 25-year-old Irving with two years remaining on his deal in at point guard for Isaiah Thomas, who has stood firm in his stance that he deserves a max deal next summer.

There are basketball reasons and financial reasons that make some sense for the Celtics in this trade. Giving Irving a max deal in the future is likely more palatable than doing the same for Thomas, and they sell high on Thomas after a career year ended prematurely due to a hip injury to acquire a four-time All-Star.

However, one Fox Sports reporter would like you to know that the trade for Irving was also about getting a problem player out of the Celtics locker room. Chris Broussard appeared on Fox Sports One’s Undisputed and reported that Thomas wasn’t as well-liked in the Celtics locker room as you might think.

“I will tell you this, I spoke to several executives, or texted with several executives last night, and a lot of them were saying that a lot of the players in Boston really weren’t that fond of Isaiah. We know he had those problems in Sacramento and in Phoenix. I didn’t know he was having those issues before I was talking with these executives in Boston.”

Broussard also talked about Thomas’s “Napoleon complex” and the “chip on his shoulder,” before pointing out that he’ll probably be fine in Cleveland, as he needs to play well to get paid.

This is the process when a trade goes down in a big city, especially a sports media market like Boston. Player X gets traded and, rather than let that play just move on, the rumors and talk comes out after they’ve packed up and left. It’s all too common in Boston sports, and it’s why people are automatically skeptical of reports like this when they surface right on cue.

Terry Francona, for example, can’t leave quietly as the most successful manager in modern Red Sox history as the franchise moves in another direction, he has to walk out the door with anonymous accusations that he was addicted to painkillers. It’s part and parcel of the landscape that’s there, and why Boston can be such a tough place to play in.

It doesn’t mean it has to mean anything, though, and Thomas’ former teammate in Boston — and now a member of the Miami Heat — took to Twitter to call the report “preposterous.”

There are plenty of good reasons to justify trading Thomas for Irving without needing to get into anonymously sourced rumors from league executives, not even players in the locker room, about possible clashes he had in Boston.