Home Is Where the Heart Is, and Isaiah Thomas Is Still Searching

Home and family are two of the most important factors in identity. They are two of the most important facets in life. In the space of five months, Isaiah Thomas lost both.

On April 14, Thomas’ younger sister Chyna died in a car crash in their hometown of Tacoma, Washington.

The very next day, Thomas starred with 33 points, six assists and six rebounds in his Boston Celtics’ Game 1 loss to the Chicago Bulls in the First Round of the Playoffs.

Boston would come back from 2-0 down to win the series 4-2, on route to the Eastern Conference Finals.

Five months later, on August 22, Thomas was traded to the Cleveland Cavaliers. It was a similar chapter to those preceding in his career, but this one hurt much more.

To Thomas, the Celtics, and the city of Boston, were so much more than a team, and the city home to that team. They were family.

For the first time since leaving his native Washington, Thomas felt he was in a place where it all meant something to him, and where he meant a lot to that something.

“I felt like I was building my own thing in Boston and we were close,” Thomas lamented to Sports Illustrated.

“We were so close. That’s what hurts. We went from the lottery to the Conference Finals. We just got Hayward. We were right there.”

This is nothing new to Thomas. At 5’9", he has been constantly overlooked throughout his career, figuratively and literally.

The Sacramento Kings’ 60th and last pick in the NBA Draft in 2011 was cast away by the team after averaging 20.3 points per game and 6.3 assists per game in 2013-14, and winning the starting point guard position twice after they’d brought in competition.

The next stop was the Phoenix Suns, who traded him after 46 games of 2014-15, and one start, after battling Goran Dragic and Eric Bledsoe.

Then came the unsure port of Boston, where he failed to start a game for the rest of the season for a team in the midst of a rebuild.

The year after, Thomas’ 22.2 PPG and 6.2 APG, saw him play a career-high 82 games. That summer, they added Al Horford, and things seemed to be heading in the right direction — this time, with Thomas at the forefront.

2016-17 saw Thomas enter Most Valuable Player calculations, with a season of 28.9 PPG and 5.9 APG for the first-seeded C's, before falling to his future teammates in Cleveland one round before the Finals.

Thomas can be forgiven for being optimistic after persuading Gordon Hayward to join him and number three overall pick Jayson Tatum for the team’s best shot at a championship since their trip to the Finals in 2009-10.

Then came August 22 and his chilling reminder the only surety in professional sports is nothing is sure. The deck had been shuffled again, and Thomas was a Cavalier.

Everything he had helped build in Beantown was now going to be complete without him.

As mentioned, this is nothing new to Thomas. This is his fourth NBA team, and in all likelihood, will not be his last. He’d been traded before and can be expected to be traded again.

That’s the life of 99 out of 100 players who step into the League — if they’re lucky. Thomas was lucky to be drafted in the first place.

However, Boston was different for Thomas. After a lifetime of being overlooked, he was now the centre of attention. After a lifetime of being a player on the team, he was the player on the team.

The Celtics are, and always will be, different. When you’re cheered for in TD Garden, they’re not just cheers for a basketball team. They’re vocal exclamations of, “When you win here, it’s different, and we love you for it.”

It’s the kind of love that has brought many ex-C's to tears upon their departure. It was not something Thomas had ever known before and it gave him what every athlete craves for his entire career.

On August 22, Boston’s President of Basketball Operations, Danny Ainge, took that away.

That’s not to downplay the opportunity he has to help build something special with the Cavs, but the role he is now used to playing is already taken on his new team, by the best player in the world.

In The Forest City, the feeling of winning will perpetually be underpinned by the city’s preoccupation with LeBron James. Like Return of the Jedi, it’s good, maybe even great, but still not quite the same.

Thomas will fit in. He will be cheered for, but as far as champions in Cleveland go, the city’s love is taken up by James.

Thomas was there from the start with the Celtics. Now, like those he’d previously worked so hard to recruit, he’s the supporting cast.

He may not have won a championship with the C's. He surely didn’t win one with Sacramento or Phoenix. He may finally get there with the Cavaliers.

Maybe for Dwyane Wade, another new Cav, or Kevin Durant, it might be enough, but for somebody like Isaiah Thomas, it won’t quite be the same.

They say it’s better to have loved and lost than not at all, but that will never remove the hurt Thomas feels, no matter how many rings line his fingers.