For a while, it looked like Isaiah Thomas had the potential to go down as the best player under 6 feet to ever play in the NBA. He had turned himself into a scoring machine with the Celtics and in the 2016-17 season, averaged 28.9 points which ranked 3rd in the league.
He was named an All-Star for the second straight year and made it to the All-NBA Second team but things went downhill in a hurry after that. Thomas played through an injury for the Celtics in the playoffs that season and he was never the same after that. He bounced around the league for a while and it seems like his playing days are over at this point as he remains unsigned this season. Thomas has now decided to try his hand at broadcasting at Overtime Elite and if this is indeed the end for IT, he can still walk away with his head held high after an 11-year career in the NBA.
Isaiah Thomas Says Kobe Bryant Is The Best Player He Ever Faced
During those 11 seasons, he also had the pleasure of playing against some of the greats of the game, and during an appearance on the Ball Don’t Stop podcast, Thomas was asked who was the best player he played against.
(starts at 52:00 mark):
“Kobe (Bryant). You just feared him right when you stepped on the court like his energy was for you to fear.”
“When I seen him, in every move, everything he did was so strategic and I never seen somebody that sharp… Then when I got to build a friendship with him and hear him talk about the game, it’s a level that I’ve never heard before, nobody comes close.”
Just yet another instance of a player speaking of Kobe Bryant’s greatness. While the media and fans, in general, don’t seem to hold Bryant in the same breath as the likes of Michael Jordan and LeBron James, a lot of ex-players do rate him very highly.
Isaiah has always been in awe of Bryant, as he called going up against him in his rookie year his welcome to the NBA moment. Also during this interview, he pushed back on the notion that he is a defensive liability, but it is clear teams do view him to be that, which explains why he isn’t on a roster at the moment.
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