As a free agent this offseason, should the Los Angeles Lakers re-sign Isaiah Thomas?
On March 28th, it was announced that Isaiah Thomas would have surgery on his hip. It was later confirmed that the surgery had ended one of the most polarizing individual seasons in recent NBA history.
Isaiah ended the 2016-17 season on the Boston Celtics with 28.9 PPG and 5.9 APG, leading the Celtics to a Eastern Conference Finals appearance. The season was so good that it put Isaiah at 5th in MVP voting and put him on the Second All-NBA team. In August, Isaiah was traded to the Cleveland Cavaliers in the blockbuster trade that brought Kyrie Irving to Boston. After being out until January of the 2017-18 season rehabbing his injured hip, Isaiah returned to the court and performed poorly compared to his previous season’s numbers.
The former Washington Husky put up 14.7 PPG in 15 games with the Cavs, which was far below his average with the Celtics. That, paired with internal controversies and an overall bad fit with the Cavs, resulted in Isaiah being traded for the second time in seven months. This time, it was to the Los Angeles Lakers. Overall, the Lakers performed alright with him on the team, whether it was due to him or not. The Lakers went 8-9 in the games he played in before he had the surgery performed on his hip.
Isaiah is set to be a free agent this summer, and probably won’t be getting the “Brinks truck” that he talked about in Boston. The guard will most likely get something like a 1 year deal or a contract with not much money on it. The Lakers have plenty of cap space this summer, so they could theoretically bring him back even if they sign a player like LeBron James or Paul George to a max contract.
The fact of the matter is, there are some pretty glaring reasons that the Lakers probably shouldn’t bring him back.