SeaTown Sports Brew - The Slow Grind of Isaiah Thomas

Weekly Seattle Sports Roundup: Isaiah Thomas' NBA Journey, the Mariners' Playoff Push Falters, and More.

The SeaTown Sports Brew is a weekly briefing and roundup providing insight into Seattle’s sports teams and athletes. Have a tip? Leave us a comment or email me at kevin@seatownsports.org. Subscribe below if you want this in your inbox every Monday.

The Leadoff - Isaiah Thomas’ Hard Work

Isaiah Thomas is a random topic to bring up in September at the start of the football season. But perhaps you need a football cleanse after last weekend’s packed slate of college football.

While on parental leave, I’ve tried to get out of the house and have an “event of the day” with my five-month-old. On the way to pay his mom a special visit at her work, we listened to some of the latest “Knuckleheads” podcast hosted by former NBA players Quentin Richardson and Darius Miles, where they had Washington Huskies legend Isaiah Thomas on as a guest.

If you’re a UW basketball fan or a Seattle basketball fan, in general, you’ll enjoy this episode. Over the years, there has been many interviews with Thomas, but in this one, he seems much more candid about his journey to the NBA.

For example, he talked about how the difficulties of having to move to South Kent School in South Kent, Connecticut after his junior year of high school at Curtis in Tacoma. Such a move was necessary for him to qualify academically to play at the University of Washington. He characterized it as one of the best things for him, to help him mature as a young man, but recounted the difficulties of living so far away from home for two years.¹

He also talked about his decision to forgo his senior year at Washington, despite the advice from Washington’s head coach at the time, Lorenzo Romar. Thomas told Romar it was never his goal to become a legend at Washington, but rather, it was his goal to make the NBA. Thomas did not feel like another year at UW would have improved his draft stock significantly. Instead, Thomas told Miles and Richardson that he decided to “bet on himself” and enter the NBA draft. To Romar’s credit, he supported Thomas’ decision and committed to help prepare Thomas for his various pre-draft workouts with teams.

Thomas shared about his mentality in pre-draft workouts — how he aimed to be as perfect as possible with everything he could control. He understood that being a small guard, meant he had a smaller margin for error compared to his counterparts who did not have to deal with being a 5-9 guard in a big man’s NBA. It was refreshing to hear Thomas go into detail about the hard work he put into this process to put him in a position to get drafted.

You probably are aware of the rest of Thomas’ story. After being drafted with the last pick in the 2011 NBA draft by the Sacramento Kings, Thomas spent three seasons in Sacramento, and played a short stint in Phoenix, before being traded to the Boston Celtics. In Boston, Thomas flourished into a star. He reached his peak in his third season with the Celtics in 2016-17, averaging 28.9 points and 5.9 assists per game, earning All-NBA Second-Team honors and finishing fifth in MVP voting.

Unfortunately, Thomas suffered a right hip injury during that season, and the Celtics traded him to the Cavaliers. The injury impacted his play, and he really never regained the same explosiveness and quickness he had prior to the injury. He now has become somewhat of an NBA journeyman, playing for seven different teams since his trade from Boston.

Thomas last appeared in six games for the Phoenix Suns last season. Now, at 35 years-old, it remains to be seen how much time he has left to play professionally in the NBA.

He remains one of the most exciting basketball players I’ve seen play in person — whether that be at a preseason scrimmage between Loyola Marymount and Washington, a Jamal Crawford Pro-Am game, or a Seattle NBA charity game.²

Oh, and one last thing. Watching this game-winner with Gus Johnson’s call, never gets old, right?

---

Winners and Losers

• Losers - Seattle Mariners (69-68) - Winning two of three from the Rays is good. Losing two of three to the Angels is not good. At this point, the Mariners, at the minimum need to basically win the rest of their series against their opponents. The Astros aren’t slowing down . . . at all, and every series loss bring the Mariners closer to their inevitable fate of not making the playoffs.

• Losers - Seattle Sounders FC (11-7-9) - The Sounders were eliminated in the U.S. Open Cup by LAFC, 1-0 last Wednesday. The team then fell to their rival, the Portland Timbers on Sunday night, 1-0. Seattle now has dropped three of their last four matches.

• Winners - Seattle Reign (4-5-9) - Seattle now is riding a two-game winning streak after coming away with a 3-2 road win against Racing Louisville FC. Ji So-Yun scored a goal in the 75th minute for the Reign to tie the game, before an own goal by Louisville gave the Reign its 3-2 victory.

• Losers - Seattle Storm (19-13) - The Storm had a rough week, dropping three out of their four games. Despite this, the Storm have clinched their playoff spot with eight regular season games remaining.

• Winners - Washington Huskies (1-0) - UW opened up its season with a 38-3 victory over an inferior Weber State team. My recap:

  Washington Dominates Weber State, Jonah Coleman and Huskies Run Away With 35-3 Win

On-Deck

• Seahawks! Week one is here. Seattle hosts the Denver Broncos on Sunday, 9/8 at 1:05 p.m. on CBS.

• The Washington Huskies (1-0) host Eastern Michigan on Saturday 9/7, 12:30 p.m. on the Big Ten Network.

• The Mariners (69-68) continue their road trip with four games against the Oakland A’s (59-78) (the last time the Mariners will play in Oakland before the A’s move to Sacramento). Seattle then travels to St. Louis for a three-game weekend series against the Cardinals (69-68). All games will be televised on ROOTNW.

• The Sounders (11-7-9) play a tough Columbus Crew squad (14-7-4) on the road. Columbus has won its last seven games. The game is on Saturday 9/7, 1:30 p.m. at on Apple TV (MLS Season Pass).

• The Storm (19-13) have a busy week with three games on their slate this week:

  • Seattle gets another shot against the Connecticut Sun (24-8) on Tuesday 9/3, 4 p.m. on Fox 13+/Amazon Prime Video (Seattle).

  • Seattle then heads north to face the first-place New York Liberty (27-6) on Thursday 9/5, 4 p.m. on Fox 13+/Amazon Prime Video (Seattle)

  • Finally, the Storm host the Phoneix Mercury (16-17) on Saturday 9/7, 7 p.m. on Fox 13+/Amazon Prime Video (Seattle).

• The Reign (4-5-9) travel to L.A. to face Angel City FC on Friday 9/6 at 7 p.m. PT. The match will be aired on Amazon Prime.

  ---

Seattle Athlete of the Week

Nneka Ogwumike, Forward - Seattle Storm

Last week,

Neil Paine

posted updated WNBA individual Consensus Wins player rankings. Consensus Wins is an advanced basketball statistic that approximates the value of a player through the amount of wins they are worth to an WNBA team. The top two leaders in this statistic are no surprise. Las Vegas Aces Center A’ja Wilson is No. 1 at 10 CWs and New York Liberty Forward/Seattle Storm legend Breanna Stewart is No. 2 at 7.9 CWs. At No. 3 is Minnesota Lynx Forward Napheesa Collier at 6.2 CWs.

And at No. 4 is Seattle Storm forward Nneka Ogwumike at 5.2 CWs. Who knew that Ogwumike might be the fourth-best player in the WNBA this season? Paine mentioned to me in a Substack note that Ogwumike has been at the top of advanced metrics before in her career and that she’s currently second on the Storm in pointes per 100 possessions. So, even though Storm guard Jewell Loyd is leading the team at 20.4 points per game, Ogwumike has been more efficient in her scoring.

🏀 2024 WNBA Elo Team Power Rankings and Player Rankings 📈

---

This Week in Seattle Sports History

On September 3, 1981, the longest MLB game in Fenway Park history was suspended after 19 innings between the Seattle Mariners and the Boston Red Sox. The M’s won 8-7 in the 20th inning, on September 4, 1981.

From Fenway’s Best Moments:

The score was 7-7 when it was suspended in the 19th inning.  Time was officially called at 1:16 a.m. due to an American League curfew. Chief umpire Don Denkinger said while the umpires are in control of the final series, the curfew is only waived if it is the final game.

Both teams had rapped out 21 hits and made two errors. The Mariners used 26 players, including seven pitchers. The Red Sox used 20 players, including six pitchers. Neither Carl Yastrzemski nor Carney Lansford were available because of injury.  That the two teams would wind up playing two days was about the last thing the crowd of 13,355 expected after seven innings. Boston was trailing 7-3 and Mike Parrott was in command for Seattle. But Boston got a run in the eighth inning and rallied for three more in the bottom of the ninth to send it to extra innings.  Joe Rudi hit a two-run single with one out in the ninth to get Boston to within one run. Then rookie Rich Gedman singled home pinch runner Reid Nichols with the game-tying run.  And so it went on until the 19th inning with neither team able to break the deadlock.

Fast Break

How Will Rogers found his way to Washington (twice)

Rounding Out the Numbers: Dog Days

Baseball Bytes: Scott Servais, Jerry Dipoto and the Foibles of 54 Percent

Top 11 Players With the Most Home Runs in a Postseason

Great Osobor Scouting Report

Subscriber Shoutouts!

More shoutouts to our top subscribers. Thank you Karen, Charisse, and Kelsey for subscribing and reading. Thanks to my sister Caroline for reading and always providing helpful feedback on the Wait For It Seattle podcast. Thanks to Brian’s sister Caitlin for also reading and listening. Sisters are awesome. Thanks to Jason, Michael (IU’s finest), and

Andrew Haubner

from

No Cap Space WBB

for subscribing. We love reading your site. Is your name missing? Leave us a comment and complain, or wait until next Monday!

1. As a side note, the East Coast prep school circuit is known as one of the most competitive training grounds for future college talent. Over a decade ago, I profiled another basketball player, Anthony Ireland, who was a standout at Loyola Marymount University. Before playing at LMU, he attended the Winchendon School, a prep school in Massachusetts. He, like Thomas, noted the academic rigors of the environment, but also the benefits of going through the grind of school and basketball in the prep school/boarding school environment.

2. Are you sick of hearing about LMU? Thomas paid the LMU basketball team a visit last week. Romar now serves as an assistant coach for LMU.