Isaiah Thomas is a little guy with big confidence. It’s mostly deserved, as Thomas was one of the most electric players of the 2016-17 NBA season with the Boston Celtics.
Of course, since then Thomas has bounced around a little bit following a hip injury and a trade to the Cleveland Cavaliers that didn’t quite work out. Thomas has played for the Los Angeles Lakers since then, and now he’ll try to resurrect his chances at a larger contract with the Denver Nuggets this upcoming year.
Still, I’m not sure that how Thomas apparently feels about himself is reasonable. While the NBA guard was talking to comedian Kevin Hart during an interview this past week, Thomas revealed his top five point guards playing in the NBA today. Surprisingly (or perhaps not) Thomas listed himself as the best PG in the league.
According to Thomas, the list includes Stephen Curry, Russell Westbrook, Kyrie Irving and Damian Lillard.
Some players need to be that Irrational Confidence Guy, but Thomas is so far removed from his peak that it’s a little disheartening to see him have a lack of humility -- or perhaps humor -- about his current situation. Thomas has gone from a top VORP guy to a negative VORP guy in the course of two seasons. Nobody is backing up the Brinks truck for him soon, and at age 29 it’s more likely than not he will have a hard time recovering from his previous injury concerns.
Criticism of Thomas’s opinion about himself aside, he really is the victim of poor timing and NBA GMs letting their prejudice against short dudes get the better of them. Advanced statistics suggest that Thomas was not deserving of the kind of money he wanted when he made the Brinks truck comment, but he was worth more than what teams were willing to offer him. His injury simply came at an inopportune time.
Hopefully he can be a spark plug for a team in Denver who will be fun to watch and will likely be a playoff team if health allows.