In search of another NBA opportunity, veteran guard Isaiah Thomas is signing a G League contract and rejoining the Jazz‘s G League affiliate, the Salt Lake City Stars, reports Shams Charania of ESPN (Twitter link).
A two-time All-Star, Thomas was a Sixth Man of the Year runner-up in 2015 and finished fifth in MVP voting back in 2017 after averaging 28.9 points per game for the Celtics.
However, a right hip injury sidetracked his career, as concerns about his health, age (36 in February), and limited contributions on defense made it more difficult for him to find NBA work in recent years. He has only appeared in 31 regular season games since the start of the 2020/21 season.
If the idea of Thomas joining the Salt Lake City Stars as he seeks an NBA comeback sounds familiar, it’s because he took the same route last March.
During a brief stint for Utah’s G League team last winter, the 5’9″ guard scored at least 30 points in four straight games, earning an NBA call-up with the Suns, who signed him to a pair of 10-day contracts and a rest-of-season deal near the end of the 2023/24 regular season.
Although he spent the final month of the 2023/24 season – and the playoffs – in Phoenix, Thomas played a very limited role for the Suns, getting into six regular season games and scoring eight points in 19 total minutes on 3-of-10 shooting. He also saw four garbage-time minutes in a single postseason appearance.
Danny Ainge must have finally backed up that Brinks truck!
This dude has zero self awareness. Go play in Australia
You would think he’d get a lot more fans and money playing overseas somewhere.
There’s that new counterpart to the NBA that LeBron’s business partner is trying to launch. He could be featured in that?
Good for him. People like to give IT a hard time for being a little melodramatic, but I appreciate his passion.
I don’t understand why folks hate on him for playing out this string as long as he can. Who cares if it’s fruitless? That’s what he wants to do. Hopefully he is making that decision from a healthy mindset and not out of desperation given the way his career tailed off, but either way it’s none of our business. Him continuing to put in the work hurts no one. I wish him well.
I mostly agree. However, there are players on the Stars that he would be hurting when he plays. That would’ve been minutes they played.