Everyone watching the Boston Celtics battle for their championship hopes knows center Robert Williams isn't quite himself.
Williams has battled knee pain throughout the postseason after having surgery to repair a torn meniscus in his left knee back in March. Still, he has vowed to play through the discomfort for as long as the NBA Finals continues. Though he hasn't spoken in many specifics about what he's dealing with, it apparently has involved a lot of draining fluid from his knee in previous rounds, which he decided to discontinue in the Finals.
He acknowledges he could be taking a risk with the rest of his career for the sake of a championship, but the Celtics' staff has reportedly told him he's not at risk of further injuring the knee by playing.
One notable former Celtic isn't buying that.
Isaiah Thomas, who famously played through personal tragedy and a torn labrum in his hip during the 2017 NBA Playoffs, had a concerning response to the report about the Celtics' advice to Williams: "Heard that before lol."
Thomas, as many will recall, fought through the hip injury during the 2017 Eastern Conference Finals while heading into an off-season where he hoped to sign a lucrative contract extension. Instead of inking him to a max contract, the Celtics traded Thomas to the Cleveland Cavaliers in exchange for Kyrie Irving.
The formerly electric scoring guard was never the same player after those playoffs, eventually undergoing hip surgery and bouncing in and out of the NBA ever since. Thomas managed to return to the NBA this year and finished the season with the Charlotte Hornets, though he will become a free agent once again this off-season.
Though trading Thomas was ultimately good process (despite how it turned out with Irving), his saga presents a cautionary tale of what can happen when you put the team's potential success over your health.
The hope is that Williams won't, in fact, hurt himself worse by the end of this series, whether that's Thursday or Sunday night, and is ready to go when the next season begins. Fortunately for him, he just signed a four-year, $48 million extension last summer and has proved himself one of Boston's most important pillars.
Of course, it would also be great if he had enough in the tank short-term to help the Celtics pull this NBA title from the jaws of defeat.
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