The Boston Celtics Tribute Video Conundrum: Nobody Wins

Nobody is going to win the tribute video and jersey retirement conundrum for the Boston Celtics

The whole thing is just silly now. I held onto my sympathy for a long time regarding Isaiah Thomas‘ I-can’t-believe-they-traded-me story even though the writing was on the wall the very second he demanded a max contract on national television while nursing a hip injury that cost him over 30 games and a productive summer.

He had a point when he said that he built the Boston Celtics as we know them now – until he didn’t. See, that roster is gone now. Isaiah may have taken a group to new heights, but most of that group was traded away and left behind all the same. And as a matter of fact, it was also the Celtics that built Isaiah, who was thought of a sixth man instant-offensive guy before the Celtics groomed him to become a top-five MVP candidate.

All in all, it was mutually beneficial to a degree nobody expected. A tribute video is in order, there’s no doubt about it. But I’m not buying into anybody’s reasoning if they’re playing victim over something so trivial, which brings me to Paul Pierce.

More from Hardwood Houdini

I felt a bit of sympathy for Pierce when I realized that the Thomas appreciation night was going to overlap with Pierce’s jersey retirement ceremony. I agree that Pierce’s 15 years of greatness should take precedent over Thomas’s two years and change. If Pierce wanted to voice his frustration with the organization behind closed doors I would have no criticism for him. But instead of, or in addition to doing that, he expressed his discontent on ESPN’s The Jump, a show hosted by Rachel Nichols that often features Pierce as a guest alongside other greats from the same era – Tracy McGrady, Stephen Jackson and the like.

So now the dirty laundry is all out there. Both players have publicly expressed their entitlement to their due recognition on a night where no other player is being recognized. I should be biased, given that Pierce is my favorite athlete in the history of everything, but I can’t bring myself to care how this shakes out.

Thomas had his opportunity already but turned it down because he wasn’t going to play the second night of a back-to-back, not to mention his family didn’t come to the game with him as a result. It should end there. You don’t return for the first time twice, but the Celtics have already entertained the idea of saving the video for the next time the Cavaliers are in town, which is Paul Pierce’s jersey retirement night. Which is almost understandably irritating for Pierce, except the ceremony is after the game.

Why even schedule the event the same day as a game against Cleveland if it isn’t to remind LeBron James about the last time he didn’t make the finals? The Celtics front office has been fairly quiet in all this, but they are not innocent. Picking the most petty date possible without capitalizing on the passive aggressiveness is a misstep of its own kind.

Next: Celtics Need Balance Against Wolves

Nobody wins. I look forward to never hearing about it again.

Home/Celtics News