Keith Strudler: Rooting For Isaiah

It is hard not to root for Isaiah Thomas right now. I’m speaking of the younger Isaiah, the one that plays guard for the Boston Celtics, not the one that led the Knicks into a theme park like free fall. Let’s start with the fact that he’s managed to become an all-star despite his 5’9” frame. Having actually met him once and also standing 5’9”, I can attest to his stature. We were literally eye-to-eye. He looked like a college intramural player. So for that alone, he’s a fan favorite.

But in these NBA Playoffs, Isaiah has gone from remarkable to downright superhuman. That’s because the night before his first playoff game, two weeks ago against the Chicago Bulls, Thomas’ sister Chyna Thomas died in car accident. And, as athletes are want to do, Thomas decided to play the next day, dropping 33 on the Bulls in a game one loss. He went on to average over twenty points per game in the series, leading the Celtics to 4-2 series win and some serious mojo heading into the second round. Then, the day after Thomas spoke at Chyna’s funeral, he lit up the Washington Wizards with another 33 points to take a one game to nothing lead in this current series. Oh, and last night, on what would have been his sister’s 23^rd birthday, Thomas scored 53 to push the Celtics to a crazy comeback win and 2-0 series lead. And by the way, he spent much of the day in the hospital getting oral surgery on a tooth that was loosened during game one.

So that, in a nutshell, is why it’s hard to root against Isaiah Thomas. He is the ultimate underdog. When most of us look for any excuse to mail it in, he’s found every way not to. A lot of us go home from work when we get a cold. Or we stay so we can complain. Isaiah Thomas plays through surgery. And most of us didn’t even know it.

But what’s most remarkable right now is Isaiah’s ability to play through tragedy. He is enduring one of life’s most challenging moments – the sudden loss of a sibling at a cruel and young age – and still performing at not only his normally high level, but actually an echelon above. He is both compartmentalizing tragedy while also seemingly drawing from it. That cocktail of awareness and dissonance is hard to fathom, particularly in a profession where nothing less than the best in the world will suffice.

Isaiah Thomas is not the first athlete to play through tragedy. Some have fared better than others. For example, Brett Favre had one of his career’s finest games after the loss of his father in 2003, a Monday night affair against Oakland where he threw for 311 yards in just the first half. The entire Loyola Marymount team played through the death of teammate Hank Gathers in 1990, who collapsed on the court late in the season. That team fought its way to the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament. And everyone remembers Michael Jordan’s emotional breakdown after winning his fourth NBA title on father’s day in 1996 – the first since his father’s murder three years prior.

Not all tragedies have led to such athletic heights. Perhaps most famously, Olympic speed skater Dan Jansen struggled with the death of his sister in the 1988 Winter Games, falling twice and failing to finish, much less medal, despite being top ranked in the world. For those that remember, it was heartbreaking to watch, kind of what grief would look like if it were a sport.

So there’s no real litmus or even timeline for sport and tragedy. For some folks, it’s seems almost inspirational. For others, overwhelming. It would be uneducated and unfair for me to even attempt to assess why or how individual athletes react, other to say that human emotion is very much at the core of human athletic performance – both good and bad. So for those that assume star athletes are simply machines that perform at will, some kind of automated device, I’d suggest they’re way off. Athletes live in a world of heightened intensity, particularly in moments like the playoffs or the Olympics, where the stakes are far higher than a routine performance. At those times, there is no average day – not if you want any level of success. So being your best when your life is at its worst is both remarkable and psychological wizardry.

Right now, no one is a greater exemplar of that than Isaiah Thomas, who is somehow managing the death of his sister and leading his team through the NBA Playoffs at the same time. I have no idea what kind of toll this will take on him, emotionally and physically, or what happens when the lights go out, which they will when the playoff run ends. I just know that right now, it’s hard not to root for Isaiah Thomas.

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