Isaiah Thomas is ready to let bygones be bygones.
The retired former NBA All-Star Thomas is reuniting with the Boston Celtics, Adam Himmelsbach of the Boston Globe reported on Thursday. Himmelsbach reveals that the Celtics have hired Thomas as a pro and college scout and that Thomas will be based in his hometown of Seattle, Wash., providing West Coast reinforcement to Boston’s president of basketball operations Brad Stevens.
Thomas, still only 37 years old, has plenty of history with the Celtics. He played for them from 2015-17, which ended up being the best years of Thomas’ entire NBA career.
The 5-foot-9 Thomas thrived in Boston, making two All-Star teams and an All-NBA Second Team in 2017. He also became a major fan favorite for the Celtics, leading the team to an Eastern Conference Finals berth in 2017 (marking the deepest the franchise had gone in the playoffs for a half-decade up to that point).
But Thomas’ relationship with the team quickly soured after he notably played through a hip injury as well as the death of his younger sister in a car crash during that 2017 postseason. That very same summer though, Thomas was then unceremoniously dealt to the Cleveland Cavaliers as part of the Kyrie Irving trade, and his NBA career was never the same thanks to the enduring damage that he sustained to his hip during that playoff run.
That said, the Celtics look a little different these days with Stevens now running the show and Danny Ainge (the former Boston GM who traded Thomas) on the opposite coast with the Utah Jazz. Thomas, who last played in the NBA for the Phoenix Suns in 2024, was still publicly dissing the Celtics some five years after being traded. But now in 2026, Thomas is finally burying the hatchet with the organization and returning to Boston as a scout.
