1. He did not play well with LeBron in Cleveland
Recently, Thomas had some negative comments on social media about his time in Cleveland and why he is not surprised LeBron left. He has since apologized for calling Cleveland a “s***hole”, but he should have been sorry for his abysmal play with the team. When he was in a Cavs uniform he looked like a shell of himself and constantly was bickering with coaches and teammates.
He specifically did not mesh well with franchise star LeBron James and that is probably the biggest reason why the Lakers decided to go in another direction with the backup point guard spot. It would make no sense to bring back Thomas if they knew LeBron was on his way and it could have even hurt their recruiting pitch if they re-signed Thomas early in the free agency process.
At one point last season, when the Cavaliers were struggling, James was reportedly frustrated with how he and Thomas were fitting on the court together. They are both ball dominant players and they had trouble finding ways to fit together because of it.
Brian Windhorst (the go-to source for LeBron news) shared some stats with the Le Batard show that showed the James and Thomas pairing was not working last season.
“They don’t play together at all on the court,” Windhorst said. “A couple days ago our stats and information group sent me that Isaiah was shooting less than 20 percent on passes from LeBron, so LeBron’s throwing him passes and Isaiah’s making none of them.”
Thomas’ struggles playing with LeBron was the reason he was shipped out of Cleveland to the Lakers in the first place. So it would have made no sense for the Lakers recreate the same problem by bringing back Thomas to play with James in his first season in Los Angeles.
There are already a lot of big personalities for Luke Walton to deal with in the locker room next season, and re-signing Thomas would have likely caused more drama.