How tight are Isaiah Thomas and Tom Brady?
Tight enough for the New England Patriot quarterback to text the All-NBA point guard after news broke that he was traded from the Boston Celtics to the Cleveland Cavaliers as part of the Kyrie Irving trade.
Thomas penned a piece for The Players’ Tribune that dropped on Wednesday, wherein he discussed the immediate aftermath of the blockbuster trade, right down to how he found out and how he is, in some ways, still coping with the news. The entire thing is worth a read. It’s raw and real. But one of the most interesting anecdotes focuses on Brady. Here’s what IT wrote:
Like I said, when the trade news broke, I got a lot of messages. They had my texts, IG, Twitter, voicemail, you name it, just blowing up. But there was one message in particular, out of all of them, that really stuck with me. It was from Tom Brady.
What’s up, IT, I heard about the news. You good?
I’m alright. I mean, it’s crazy. It’s a cold game.
Yes it is. Best of luck. You’re gonna do great. Keep in touch.
It wasn’t about what he said, exactly — though it was cool for him to say all that, no doubt. But it was more just everything it meant, I think, that stuck with me. To be getting a personal message like that from someone like Tom, who is such a Boston sports legend … I mean, it was bittersweet.
This little exchange—along with the entire piece—serves as a brilliant, and necessary, reminder that sports aren’t just sports. They’re a business. And at the other side of the business, the one often shielded from the public eye, is a real, live person, with a family and feelings and actual shit to deal with.
Remember that the next time you’re reacting to a trade, or even when you’re proposing one. Yours truly is guilty of it, too. The business and entertainment side of things often overshadows what’s going on behind the scenes. And in this case, a closed-door view would have revealed Thomas, laboring through the news like the human that he is, with a little bit of a (bittersweet) push from a five-time Super Bowl champion.
