Isaiah Thomas has not looked like himself since making his debut for the Cleveland Cavaliers. This isn’t surprising, as getting up to speed for a title contender after missing the first half of the regular season with a hip injury is really, really hard. There have been times where he’s performed well, but on the whole, Thomas has played in four games is averaging 12.3 points in 21 minutes a night.
Thomas spoke after the Cavaliers’ practice on Sunday about how he’s working to get up to form, and as it turns out, he has a pretty fixable problem: he’s not in game shape yet.
“I knew it was going to be like this,” Thomas said, according to ESPN. “I have no legs. So it’s going to take some time to get it back, even when I played well those first two games I told Coach Lue it didn’t feel right. It was kind of fool’s gold.”
Calling his play in his good games — his 17-point performance against Portland and his 19-point night against Orlando — “fool’s gold” is harsh, but Thomas elaborate on what this meant. Essentially, while he was getting buckets, he didn’t feel especially comfortable on the floor.
“The shots were going in, but none of my movements, none of the things I usually do felt normal,” Thomas said. “It’s going to be like that for a while. I’ve just got to be patient. I’m my biggest critic; I’m not a patient person. So it’s killing me that … to be, I’m used to stepping on the court and being special. So now I’ve got to work. I’ve got to work my way back and get my legs back and get my legs back to playing at a high level.”
At his best, Thomas can be a massive piece to the Cavs’ puzzle, a dynamic scoring guard who takes some of the load off of LeBron James and carries the team at times. But as he revealed, he still has a way to go before his body gets to that point.
