Almost since the moment the Boston Celtics traded Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce to the Brooklyn Nets, the search has been on for Boston's next great superstar.
With the lottery picks acquired from the Nets in that deal as trade chips, the Celtics have been linked to virtually every All-Star who has changed teams over the past two-plus years. They landed one of them, Al Horford, via free agency. They pitched Kevin Durant last summer and reportedly made offers for Jimmy Butler and Paul George at this year's trade deadline. Gordon Hayward will be a target this offseason.
Yet after a historic game by Isaiah Thomas, whose 53 points in Tuesday's Game 2 victory over the Washington Wizards were one shy of the Boston playoff scoring record held by the legendary John Havlicek, it's worth asking whether the Celtics are still searching for a superstar. Have they already found one on their roster?
Thomas' development into a star
Boston acquired Thomas from the Phoenix Suns for the expiring contract of Marcus Thornton and what would become the 28th pick of the 2016 draft (used as part of a draft-night trade with the Sacramento Kings, who took Skal Labissiere, with the Suns moving up from No. 13 to No. 8 to draft Marquese Chriss).
At the time of the trade, nobody figured the Celtics were getting a star.
At that point, Thomas was joining his third team in less than a year after those same Kings had declined to match Phoenix's offer to Thomas in restricted free agency. (The teams worked out a sign-and-trade that netted Sacramento a trade exception and the rights to Alex Oriakhi, who has yet to play in the NBA.)
To some extent, the market had misevaluated Thomas, who had shown the ability to score efficiently at a high volume during three years in Sacramento. He topped out at 20.3 points per game in 2013-14 with a strong .574 true shooting percentage. The league's general managers couldn't get past Thomas' 5-foot-9 height, or the notion that he wasn't a capable enough distributor as a point guard.
So when Thomas broke through as an All-Star last season, it was really more about opportunity -- playing 32-plus minutes per game on a contending team -- than it was a new level of performance. His advanced stats were similar to what he'd done in Sacramento, albeit with a little higher usage and a little less efficiency.
This season was something altogether different. By improving his 3-point shooting and ability to draw fouls around the rim, as well as benefiting from the newfound spacing provided by Horford's addition, Thomas was able to increase his share in Boston's offense to a career-high 34 percent usage rate while also improving his already solid efficiency; his .625 true shooting percentage was also a career high.
As I've noted, Thomas had one of the 10 greatest scoring seasons in modern NBA history in terms of combining volume and efficiency. He was, surely, a star if not a superstar.
Thomas acing final test
Even after Thomas' terrific season, a strain of skepticism still persisted. Could he do it in the postseason, facing bigger defenders and defenses that had time to develop a game plan specifically for him?
While Thomas' past playoff struggles were probably overstated, and the entire sample consisted of 10 games, his true shooting did dip from .579 in the regular season to .514 in the playoffs in 2014-15, and from .568 to 519 last year. While Thomas hasn't quite matched his regular-season efficiency this time around, his .595 true shooting percentage is still excellent. Among high-volume scorers with a usage rate of 30 percent or greater in the playoffs, Thomas' true shooting ranks sixth, putting him in elite company.
This probably shouldn't be surprising. The closest comparison for the type of defense Thomas and other high scorers face in the playoffs comes in regular-season fourth quarters, and he earned the nickname "King in the Fourth" for his huge performances this season.
Though MVP favorite Russell Westbrook (10.0 points per game in the fourth quarter) ended up surpassing Thomas (9.8) as the leading scorer in the final period this season, Thomas made nearly as many clutch shots as him. In fact, because of Thomas' superior efficiency in those situations, he ended up leading the league in win probability added based on Inpredictable.com's calculations of how his shots, trips to the free throw line and turnovers improved the Celtics' chances of winning. Thomas' 11 wins added were nearly two more than that of the next-best player, Portland Trail Blazers guard CJ McCollum.
A handful of skeptics might not be won over until Thomas can succeed on an even bigger stage, such as a possible matchup against the defending champion Cleveland Cavaliers in the conference finals. Based on everything he has done so far this season, there's no reason to doubt Thomas if Boston should advance.
Where do the Celtics go from here?
Even if you believe Thomas has arrived as a superstar despite his defensive limitations, that doesn't mean Boston is done adding to the roster. After all, we're a couple of weeks removed from widespread panic after the Celtics lost the first two games of their series at home to the Chicago Bulls. We'll never know how well Brad Stevens' adjustment to go small would have worked had Chicago point guard Rajon Rondo stayed healthy. And if Boston and Cleveland do reach the conference finals, the Cavaliers would surely be favored, even without home-court advantage. The Celtics need to keep improving their roster to become the favorite in the East.
Beyond that, as shown most recently by the Golden State Warriors when they signed former MVP Kevin Durant last summer despite already having two-time reigning MVP Stephen Curry, having one superstar doesn't mean turning down the opportunity to add another.
Still, Thomas' development might change the urgency for Boston to pay heavily in terms of draft picks and current role players to add a superstar. With Thomas proving capable of shouldering such a heavy offensive load in the postseason, there's less need for the shot creation provided by Butler or George.
Perhaps more important, Thomas' performance should also change the discussion about his own future. He has one season remaining on the bargain four-year, $27 million deal he signed with the Suns and is due to command max money on his next contract. That's estimated to start at $31 million based on NBA projections for the 2018-19 salary cap.
Thomas will be 29 when his contract expires, meaning a new five-year deal would take him through age 34. Because of his age and the possibility of the Celtics landing a top-two pick in this year's draft and taking a point guard, most likely UCLA's Lonzo Ball or Washington's Markelle Fultz, there's a school of thought that Boston should let someone else pay Thomas through his early 30s.
Each clutch basket Thomas scores makes that idea less palatable. As promising as Ball and Fultz are, after one year of college experience they're years away from reaching Thomas' level, if they ever get there. Letting Thomas go, even via trade for anything short of another star, would mean taking a step backward in the short term.
Fortunately, the Celtics don't have to make that decision now. Boston can see how the draft and this summer's free agency play out, as well as whether Thomas can maintain this newfound level of play into next season. But having found a star, the Celtics should be in no hurry to get rid of him.