WALTHAM - Isaiah Thomas wrote a recent feature for The Players Tribune about his favorite ballhandlers, and included a video of him burying a circus 3-pointer over Steph Curry.
Thomas, who was playing for the Kings at the time, got tangled with the Warriors guard on the right side of the 3-point arc, fell, got back to his feet while keeping his dribble alive, and hit the shot while Curry gave a "whatever" shake of his head.
Thomas listed his favorite ballhandlers as Jamal Crawford, Curry, Chris Paul, Kyrie Irving, James Harden and, true to his confidence, himself.
A player like this always envisions himself as a starter, and though he has emerged as one of the finest sixth men in the NBA, Thomas often has chafed at being brought off the bench by his various coaches. As Celtics coach Brad Stevens noted during yesterday's opening to training camp, Thomas' place in the rotation is undetermined.
Team president Danny Ainge, brusquely shrugged off the issue - "that question should never be asked" - and wrote the guard's aspiration off to the desire of every player to start. But Thomas wants to start from scratch this week. He's tired of the question, too.
"It's not tough. I tell you all the time because you guys ask all the time," he said. "I would love to be a starter, but it's not the end of the world. As long as I'm out there, getting the minutes I deserve, I'm all for it. I'm all for the team and what it takes to win - and that's an honest answer." The irony is that Thomas could very well find his way into the starting lineup this time - he's already a finisher - because of the team's sizable backcourt jumble.
Stevens has lots of combinations to consider beyond last season's rotation of Avery Bradley, Marcus Smart, Evan Turner, Thomas and the since-departed Phil Pressey. James Young will make a strong run at the shooting guard and small forward positions. Of the three drafted rookies in training camp, explosive combo guard Terry Rozier has the best chance of cracking the rotation.
But in his team's quest for more scoring, Stevens may decide that he needs Thomas' punch earlier in games. He's the best pure scoring option on the team. "I know it's a narrative, and it's going to be asked of me, but that kid is about winning, and that's first and foremost with him," Stevens said of Thomas. "I've been around him long enough to know that, even if we've only been around each other for three months during the season and conversing during the offseason.
"I have it in two buckets - there are roles, which are the expectations of everyone on our team plus what you do well, and then there's playing time and things that figure themselves out in rotation," he said. "I have not decided, nor will we for a while." Thomas has time. He admittedly needs the upcoming month to absorb a system he could only learn on the fly last spring, when a bruised lower back complicated the learning process.
"It's going to help a lot," Thomas said of his first Celtics training camp. "I'll get more familiar with Brad's system. Even in the playoffs when I got in a game, it was just face the floor and pick-and-roll. I didn't get any practices in when I got hurt. We didn't have time to practice. Having a full training camp with all of my teammates is only going to help us."
And eventually the coach will make a decision.
"I'll do that with everybody," Stevens said of talking to Thomas about his role. "On every good team you're going to have discussions like that. On every good team that's challenging to be better is going to have depth. We're going to have good players on our team and not all of them are going to play. That's the hard part of the job in some ways. But I'm not here to pre-determine everything."
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