With second All-Star nod, Thomas has vastly exceeded Ainge’s expectations

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With second All-Star nod, Thomas has vastly exceeded Ainge’s expectations




Isaiah Thomas is second in the league in scoring at 29.1 points per game.
BARRY CHIN/GLOBE STAFF



By Adam HimmelsbachGLOBE STAFF


JANUARY 29, 2017



When Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge acquired Isaiah Thomas from the Suns in February 2015, he had an early hope of what the point guard might become in Boston.

“I envisioned Isaiah being a great scorer off the bench, like on a championship team,” Ainge said. “I considered him being a guy that could spell your top one or two players and come in off the bench and still have a high usage rate and high scoring rate.”


Thomas started his Celtics career coming off the bench, but his transformation from a sparkplug scorer to one of the most dangerous offensive players in the NBA has been rapid and remarkable.

“He just keeps getting better,” Ainge said. “I mean, he’s been good for a long time. But he just keeps getting better and better, and his confidence keeps growing.”

On Thursday, Thomas was named an NBA All-Star reserve for the second consecutive season. And the fact that this news was widely viewed as a formality is a good indicator of how far Thomas has come.

Perhaps the only person who did not know that the selection was a sure thing was Thomas. On Wednesday night, he stood in the bowels of TD Garden after yet another stirring performance — 38 points and nine assists in a win over the Rockets — and was asked about the significance of likely going to the All-Star Game for the second year in a row.

“It’s one of my goals, but I’m not going to say I’m in until I hear my name called,” he said. “I’ve been let down a lot in my life so I don’t guarantee anything. Hopefully my name is called and we’ll celebrate and be happy about that moment, but we’ll see.”

The 5-foot-9-inch point guard has been overlooked — literally and figuratively — throughout his pro career, from the moment he was selected with the last pick of the 2011 NBA Draft. But his offensive dominance this season has been far too thorough and relentless to ignore.


He is averaging a career-high 29.1 points per game, second only to Oklahoma City Thunder guard Russell Westbrook.

“It’s not that easy to really get me amazed,” Ainge said, “but there definitely have been some shots he’s made this year that have made me, like, be a major fan and just be, like, ‘That’s incredible. I can’t believe he made that shot. I can’t believe he just won that game.’

“There’s been a few.”

When asked how he would have tried to guard Thomas during his playing days, Ainge laughed and said he would have simply asked for a lot of help from his teammates on defensive switches.

Thomas has been incredibly efficient despite a heavy workload. He is attempting a career-high 19.9 shots per game but also making a career-high 46.2 percent of them, including a career-best 38.1 percent of his 3-pointers.

Thomas has also surged into the spotlight when the stakes are at their highest, leading the league in fourth-quarter scoring at 10.1 points per game.

He had his powerful 52-point night against the Heat, and games such as his 38-point performance against the Rockets on Wednesday now seem commonplace. In fact, this season NBA players have scored 37 points or more 95 times, and Thomas has accounted for nine of them.

“He plays with a great deal of passion and he plays with a consistent passion,” Ainge said. “He’s a guy that just plays as if he loves what he’s doing, and he works as though he loves what he’s doing.”

Last season, when Thomas was named to his first All-Star team, he was viewed more as an upstart. This season, the process was actually tinged with some disappointment because he was not named a starter.

“Now,” he said, “it’s something I expect.”

The league unveiled a new balloting system this year, letting fans account for 50 percent of the vote while players and a panel of media members totaled 25 percent apiece. Thomas won the media vote and finished second in the player vote, but he came in fourth in the weighted fan vote.

That left him in a tie with Raptors guard DeMar DeRozan for the second backcourt spot, behind Cleveland’s Kyrie Irving. And DeRozan was named a starter because he finished ahead of Thomas in the fan vote, which was the tiebreaker.

“It was a letdown because I was expecting it and I felt like I gave myself a good chance to be a starter,” Thomas said, “but it’s almost been a week, so I’m not really worried about it.”

Now, he will simply be focused on being a two-time All-Star. Ainge hopes the next step in Thomas’s development will be becoming a pure winner, and that is something Thomas seeks, too.

But is it safe to say that Ainge was a bit off in his early vision of what Thomas could be in Boston?

“Let’s just say I think I was right,” Ainge said, chuckling. “He would have been pretty good [as a sixth man], too.”



bob
MY NOTE:  It is safe to say he has exceeded my expectations too.  To recap, Danny got him for Marcus Thornton and Cleveland's 1st round pick (#29, I think).  Marcus Thornton came to us, with Tyler Zeller and that Cleveland pick, as part of Danny's handling fee for helping Cleveland clear cap space to sign LeBron.  Danny gave up a 2nd rounder in this deal.  This means that, now two-time All-Star, Isaiah Thomas cost us a fraction of a 2nd round pick, since we still have Tyler Zeller as an asset and only gave up part of our payment for that deal to land IT.

No wonder GMs around the league are scared shitless of Trader Danny.


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I would say that Thomas may have even exceeded his own expectations of himself and he should be very proud of his work and his work habits to have done so.

Did it again tonight against the Pissed-ons. The Dynamo.