Isaiah Thomas is back for the Cleveland Cavaliers, even if the team is taking his return from a hip injury slowly. They’re taking some of the normal precautions that teams take in situations like this, including holding Thomas out of a back-to-back immediately upon his return. Unfortunately for him, that meant he would not get the chance to play against the Boston Celtics on Wednesday night.
The game could have been special for a few reasons, including a tribute video that Boston didn’t run at Thomas’ request because he wasn’t playing in the game. He might, however, get a video when the Cavs return to Beantown on Feb. 11, which presents something of a logistical challenge for the Celtics.
You see, that’s the night that Boston is retiring Paul Pierce‘s number, and it would be kind of weird if they pivoted to honoring Thomas on that evening. This is partly because, as he explained on ESPN’s The Jump on Thursday, Pierce doesn’t want this happening.
The Truth, on possibly having to share his night with I.T. ☘️
(Via ESPN's The Jump @Rachel__Nichols) https://t.co/Ph0X7huhFc
— Dime (@DimeUPROXX) January 4, 2018
“On February 11, the night I get my jersey retired, I’m not sure I wanna look up at the jumbotron and see Isaiah highlights after all the years I put in,” Pierce said. “I had a chance to watch Kobe throughout the game, the time outs, there was a lot of tribute videos for him and I enjoyed to watch that throughout the game. Now, hopefully, the Boston Celtics will do that for me, I’m not sure if I wanna see an Isaiah video.”
It’s a weird situation for the Celtics to be in, because while they want to pay tribute to Thomas, the guy who gave everything for the organization for more than a decade is on record saying he doesn’t want that to happen. There’s probably a way to thank Thomas during a game that doesn’t take away from Pierce’s night, and if the Celtics decide to go through with this, they’ll have to find out the best way to accomplish this.
