Thomas asks Celtics to skip tribute to focus on Pierce's jersey retirement
Cleveland Cavaliers point guard Isaiah Thomas wants Paul Pierce to have his jersey retirement ceremony all to himself, especially since Pierce kicked up a fuss.
Thomas asked the Boston Celtics to skip his video tribute scheduled for Feb. 11 as he didn't want to distract from the larger celebration around Pierce, who is the second-leading scorer in Celtics history.
I'd like to thank the Celtics for their gracious offer to play a video tribute on Feb 11th celebrating my 3yrs in Boston. But since it appears this has caused some controversy w/ Paul Pierce's night I'd ask the Celtics instead to focus all of their attention on #34's career.
— Isaiah Thomas (@isaiahthomas) January 17, 2018
The Celtics had initially planned to show a video tribute to Thomas in January as a small token of appreciation for what he delivered to the franchise in three memorable seasons before he was traded to Cleveland. However, Thomas was still recovering from his hip injury at the time, and chose not to make his return in hobbled fashion.
This created a scheduling issue, as the next time Thomas returned to Boston was the night on which Pierce was to have his No. 34 raised to the rafters. Pierce also made things problematic by appearing on "The Jump" to express his displeasure.
Pierce doubled down on his reticence over sharing the spotlight with Thomas during a later appearance on "NBA Countdown."