Do you actually believe Isaiah Thomas will be traded this offseason?

[tankcity!]

There is definitely a chance...What if we draft Fultz? We need someone to play PF, and a guard would need to be traded.

[Smartacus]

If you trade IT this summer, you are putting out a 35-win team next season.

Fultz isn't coming in and averaging 30 PPG. Smart and Rozier sure aren't either.

Suddenly this team has no legit scorer and that will be the new complaint around here...

And IT isn't getting you back a Lilliard or Westbrook either.

Alright Phantom I'm really not trying to throw my neck out on the line against Isaiah Thomas, but because since you brought it up saying that we need a 30 PPG scorer at PG or we're a 35 win team is a false correlation. We could still be a great team without Isaiah and do so by making a more balanced and sustainable attack.

I don't think that Fultz will to be able to walk in day one and match all of Isaiah's production. It is worth noting that he'd probably rebound a bit better and his 6'10 wingspan would probably help bother shots better at the end of games mind you, but it most likely would take years for Fultz to become the player that Isaiah is... and that's ok.

You guys make it sound like if we let Isaiah go Danny wouldn't have a contingency plan on place In this hypothetical scenario you're all making it sound like it would be the Sixers game every night where we get the doors blown off us because no one can shoot except Isaiah. Well 2 points to that...

Even if we just took Isaiah off this team as is we wouldn't be as bad as we have been playing without Isaiah in the second half of the year. Those two games that Isaiah missed recently the team looked lost because everyone is so used to playing by deferring to Isaiah for 20-plus shots a game. If we lost Isaiah I'm fairly confident that Brad Stevens would be able to rework the offense to make up for a lot of that lost production especially since we'd be adding a gifted score in his own right in Markelle Fultz.

But it wouldn't just be Fultz that we'd be adding. Be it George, Hayward, Butler or any number of players, an Isaiah Thomas trade would likely be a precursor to acquiring a player that would be paid with the cap space we saved by not paying Isaiah. Aside from Fultz's higher perceived ceiling the whole point of using Fultz to replace Isaiah is that you have him locked up on his rookie scale contract meaning you could bring in some high-profile players in the short term and not have to make a decision on Fultz himself for years down the road.

[More Banners]

Good gracious how quickly we forget that Ainge has traded the last three 'faces of the franchise,' maybe four if both KG and Pierce count. The face of the franchise is just a marketing thing. They'll just send someone else's picture to the printer's shop for Pete's sake.

[spikelovetheCelts]

IT will be on the Team next year.  I think Heyward is our best option. He cost us no picks. We need to find a veteran center who will step in front of the Lebrons in the world.  Other than that allow our new pick, Brown and last years two picks and Nader grow. Bye Zeller, Young, Green and JJ.
Hopefully we will pick stash players with our second round picks. We don't need any more tweeners from college.

[mef730]

No way. The value that we would get back would not come near to what we are giving up.

1) Nobody's going to pay up for a one-year rental, but

2) The incremental value that he provides to the Celtics is dramatically greater than what he would do for any other team. He takes our consistent scoring options from zero to one and fills holes that are, for the most part, unique to the Celtics. Few other teams value him as much as we do.

Mike

[Bobshot]

I'm on the fence here, because I'm not sure what Danny has in mind. It may depend on who he drafts and who he is able to sign as a FA. The cap situation, etc. Maybe he doesn't know, either. 

It may depend on whether IT is affordable. He will have to give some in his price if they are to get better. Ainge figures to attract some top FAs with the Celtics close to winning the Division over the Cavs--or coming real close. Nobody expected this.

[BDeCosta26]

No. He's 1 year away from a big time pay day, and he'll be 29 next year so we'll never get the kind of return we would need.

More importantly, he's the face of the franchise and the engine behind what Stevens/Ainge have built. He's basically unmovable, and we will likely be paying him a lot of money in 18 months.

[RJ87]

He's basically unmovable, and we will likely be paying him a lot of money in 18 months.

I wholeheartedly believe Ainge would trade his left arm in a deal if it was good enough.

[Ed Hollison]

The logical thing to do this offseason is to make a run at a premier free agent, a la Hayward (even if you need to give up some combinataion of Olynyk/Crowder/Bradley to clear enough space), and then run it back one more time in IT's final contract year.

Then at the end of the 2017/18 season, you can decide whether or not you want to sign IT. The worst case scenario is that he walks for more money. But in that case hopefully you've added someone to pick up the scoring slack, in the form of Hayward, or maybe the guy we draft this summer, or maybe someone like Jaylen Brown makes the leap.

Trading him this summer makes no sense. First of all, you've proven already this year that you can win at a very high level with IT as your starting point guard. You're not that far away from contending (heck, the computer models give us a 4% chance to win it all THIS YEAR). Second, though Ainge has traded away superstars before, you can't trade them when you're pursuing free agents, a process that  IT will no doubt be playing a significant role. Third, as many have already mentioned, you're probably not gonna get much back in return for one year of IT.

[mctyson]

Good gracious how quickly we forget that Ainge has traded the last three 'faces of the franchise,' maybe four if both KG and Pierce count. The face of the franchise is just a marketing thing. They'll just send someone else's picture to the printer's shop for Pete's sake.

Those "faces" were in their mid-to-late 30s on the downside of their career, making a lot of money.

IT is literally at the peak of his career right now, likely to be so next year too.  Making $5M.  That is $3M less that Tyler Zeller.

There is zero chance he is traded.

[Dannys Chipotle Guy]

Id be absolutely shocked to see isaiah thomas traded this off-season.

[BDeCosta26]

He's basically unmovable, and we will likely be paying him a lot of money in 18 months.

I wholeheartedly believe Ainge would trade his left arm in a deal if it was good enough.

Me too, but without IT on this team we'd be lucky to make the playoffs. With him, we're the top seed. At this stage of the rebuild, the only way IT gets traded is if we go wholesale on the youth movement and trade Bradley, Horford, etc. with him. I don't see any team offering us something that is as valuable to us as Isaiah is.