Isaiah Thomas Didn't Want To Go To Celtics, But Now Calls Opportunity 'Unbelievable'

Isaiah Thomas’ early scouting report on Boston wasn’t great.

The Phoenix Suns traded the point guard to the Celtics at the 2015 NBA trade deadline, and Thomas admitted in a recent interview with The Undefeated that he had some reservations about going to Boston.

Thomas wanted to play for a winner, and the trade meant he was going from a team already in the Western Conference playoff field to a Celtics team outside the East’s top eight.

“When I got traded, I didn’t want to go because even though the Phoenix thing didn’t work out, we were seventh or eighth in the West,” he said in the interview with The Undefeated. “We were fighting for a playoff spot. Boston had traded (Rajon) Rondo, they traded Jeff Green, they traded so many players. It was rebuilding time. So when I got traded there, ‘Damn, I got to go to another team that’s rebuilding at the end of their conference.’ ”

Thomas then realized, however, the Celtics were just barely outside the playoff picture.

“(Hall of Famer) Isiah Thomas called me that day and said, ‘You guys are a game and a half out of the eighth spot. Take this team to the playoffs,’ ” Thomas recalled. “That’s when it started changing a little bit to me. ‘Maybe I can see the playoffs for the first time in my career.’ ”

Thanks in large to Thomas, who averaged 19 points per game off the bench after the trade, Boston reached the playoffs. Despite being swept in the first round, it was the now two-time All-Star’s first taste of the postseason, and it was the beginning of what’s been an incredible relationship between him and the Celtics.

“It’s unbelievable,” he said. “There is no other feeling like Boston. Walking into the Garden for my first game, putting on that Celtics jersey, you could feel the energy. The history. You got to give it 110 percent every night when you put on that Celtics jersey because there is so much history behind it.

“I just took advantage of the opportunity. Stay in the moment. Sometimes I sit back and say, ‘I play for the Celtics. It doesn’t make no sense.’ ”

There is one problem, though.

‘The city was all love from the day I got there,” he said. “Just the weather sucks.”

Be that as it may, spring is right around the corner, and Thomas and the Celtics — who are just 2 1/2 games out of the Eastern Conference’s top spot as of Thursday — have fans hopeful they’ll still be playing long after the nasty New England winter has come and gone.