I agree with those who said IT played on the injured hip to try and preserve his max contract. I think he knew that if he said something he wouldn't play and his biggest knock was his playoff play.
But he DID say something. The team knew he was hurt.
He played hurt last year but to me it really didn't look any different than the two previous post seasons when he wasn't hurt and the bigger Atlanta and Cleveland guards shot over him at will. When the defense trapped him he was useless. He wasn't tall enough to see an open player for the pass, so all he could do was throw the ball up and hope for a foul or to luck it in, or both.
The ATL guards did not "shoot over him at will". That's just totally made up fantasy. Both Teague (40% FG%, 23.8% 3PT%) and Shroeder (41.1% FG%, 18.8% 3PT%) shot like crap in that series, including when guarded by Thomas.
We lost that series because we had no healthy 3PT shooters other than Thomas and Jerebko (which allowed ATL to pack the paint and to double-and-triple Thomas constantly) and we had no answer to stop Horford and Milsap from owning the front-court. But I suppose you think that Thomas was supposed to guard Milsap?
Thomas posted the highest GmSc rating by far of any player in that series at 15.1. The only other Celtic above 9 was Bradley, with an 11.9, but he only played one game. Meanwhile, Millsap and Horford both posted 13.3 & 13.7 ratings and were supported by 3 other Hawks with ratings over 10.
I think the team doctors were fired because they either knew about the injury and hushed it up, which I doubt, or they didn't know how bad it was. Remember at first it was a groin injury so it looks like IT lied to them and they didn't catch on right away. I also think that they wanted him to have surgery right away but he didn't want to. IT found his own doctor who recommended rest.
Tin-foil hat fit well?
There is not a lot of good examples of players coming back the same from that type of surgery. Look at these examples:
So only Aldridge returned to form, but then I would say that even he may have lost a step. IT's game is based on speed, he can't afford to loose a step. If he is just a little bit slower he will be useless against most of guards that he used to blow by. I think IT was legitimately afraid of surgery because of the bad track record. I don't know of any examples of people coming back just by rest and rehab alone, so we'll see how it turns out for him, but I personally don't think he'll ever have another season like last years.
So much wrong with this.
That chart only includes players with hip labrum tears who were serious enough to require surgery. It is believed that there are several times that number of cases that did not require surgery (it is not in the player's interest to broadcast this to the world). Thomas did not require surgery. Until he does, those are not good comps.
Also, the reason why there are not a lot of examples of hip labrum repairs in the NBA, period, is because it isn't that common of a serious injury in the NBA. Compare it to how often _shoulder_ labrum repairs occur, for example. The reason the hip labrum injury is less common is because the activity of basketball doesn't normally put extreme range-of-motion stress on the hips. Again, for comparison, the two types of injury are reversed in frequency in hockey. Hip labrum issues are very common in the NHL while shoulder issues are not. In hockey, normal activity often puts extreme range-of-motion stress on the hips. Some teams now routinely scan young hockey players for signs of future hip issues. In basketball, hip labrum issues tend to only occur when there is either a chronic impingement issue or a freak accident event. Thomas played a ton for his first 6 years (plus 3 years of college) with very little missed time, so this strongly suggests that the problem here was a freak event.
Having Karl Anthony Towns land on top of you probably qualifies as an 'unusual event'.
That's not a guarantee that Thomas won't be permanently diminished by this injury. I don't have access to his scans and have not been privy to his rehab workouts. His recovery will be a success or it won't regardless of our silly attempts to diagnose things through the internet. We'll just have to wait and watch. And it totally makes sense for Danny Ainge to not want to have to sit on that gamble -- especially when the opportunity arose to replace him with a younger, healthy replacement.
There are plenty of ways to look at the trade in a positive light using real facts. There is no need to make up a bunch of revisionist history and twisted conspiracy theory narratives.