New team, same Avery Bradley.
The Detroit Pistons guard returns to Boston on Monday night for the first time since the Celtics traded him in a deal involving Marcus Morris this July. It should be an emotional night for Bradley, whose solid play and unassuming nature made him a fan favorite in Boston.
That unassuming nature was on full display Monday morning, when Bradley was asked to recall the moment he found out the Celtics were trading him.
“Yeah, I was on a plane,” Bradley said after the Pistons’ shootaround in Boston, via MassLive.com’s Jay King. “I had a 6 a.m. flight and I had no WiFi, and someone told me, ‘Hey, you can buy WiFi.’
“I was really doing it to check on my family, and then I had all these texts like, ‘Are you OK?’ ‘Are you excited?’ And I knew instantly. And I still had like an hour or two left on the flight, so it was kind of nerve-wracking.”
We can just picture Bradley sitting there with his phone on Airplane Mode, perfectly content to sit through his flight with no internet connection, before a passenger noticed he was a professional athlete who might have enough money to splurge on WiFi.
What also isn’t surprising: The veteran guard harbors no resentment toward Danny Ainge and the Celtics, unlike former teammate Isaiah Thomas, who said he might never speak to Ainge again after his trade to the Cleveland Cavaliers.
“I think (Thomas) understands it’s a business as well, but we’re two different people,” Bradley said Sunday, via the Detroit Free Press. “All I can do is respect the way that he feels and I think he will do the same for me.
“I understand what (the Celtics) did. I have no hard feelings at all. I ended up with a great situation and a great organization, so I’m happy, and (the Celtics are) playing well.”
Bradley appears to be getting along fine in Detroit, too. He enters Monday averaging 16.8 points per game, which would be a career high, as the Pistons own the second-best record in the Eastern Conference behind Boston at 12-6.
