Puffy steroid face -- maybe he had to take Prednisone. Who knows, but his face does look oddly swollen.
Can't blame him. A huge mental blow when you go being an All Star looking for a max contract to a season away from having the same fate as Jeremy Lin.
I’m not sure he did. It’s not like he took a huge pay-cut to stay with a particular team. Honestly the only thing he perhaps did wrong was play with a hip injury in the playoffs. But if you take that logic to the extreme then we end up with this load management nonsense which is a detriment to the integrity of the league as a whole.
He had FAI, which is a chronic, progressive musculoskeletal condition caused by his underlying hip anatomy. This wasn't a hamstring strain, hyperextended knee, or sprained ankle - something that would heal and get him back to 100%. This is an insidious condition that usually presents with mild symptoms, then can all of a sudden worsen and lead to inability to participate in high intensity sports. PT and surgery can be instituted, but neither guarantee return of previous explosiveness. From IT's perspective, he had to make a choice and his circumstances were unfortunate in its timing. He was coming up on a contract year, so he couldn't just take it easy and rehab for a year without consequence. He knew the Celtics were already on the fence about giving him longterm max money due to the fact that he's undersized. Plus, he has a chronic "injury" which linger in many athletes, even after surgery (failure rate 25-30%). So his options were 1. sit out and give Celtics and other teams reasons to not give him the money he wanted, or 2. play through the pain and hope that he can perform in the playoffs to get that contract. He picked 2, and honestly, one cannot fault him for it. It's unfortunate that IT's hip symptoms came when it did, as he deserves much better than what he's getting now. But, you also cannot fault the Celtics. The narrative that the Celtics somehow screwed him over or that IT selflessly put the team above his own interests is unfounded.
i guess he was worried about the ceiling of his next contract, but based on his career earnings, i think he should've worried about the floor. even sitting out a year, people would just remember his mvp-caliber year and offer him a lot (maybe not the full brinks truck treatment, but there are plenty of stupid teams). i don't know how much he stood to gain from extra play. and somehow i thought i remembered the celtics doing something that made the situation worse (kinda like morey screwing d-mo) when they didn't have to. i feel bad for thomas that this is how it worked out when players with much worse contributions have been paid more in their careers, but he's still made $33M in his career so he should probably just learn to be happy with being really rich instead of insanely rich. also, in looking up his earnings, apparently basketball reference says his career is most similar to steve francis's (didn't realize francis had 2 seasons with 10+ win shares; for reference kemba walker has never gone over 9.9).
If anybody had doubts about his face being seriously bloated just take a look at this... Jesus poor guy. Him on the Cavs just two years ago... Barely looks like the same person to me.