Isaiah Thomas made the NBA rumor mill on Twitter explode mere days before the 2017 NBA Trade deadline on February 23rd. Thomas tweeted out an eyes emoji and nothing more. Normally this sort of innocuous tweet is exactly the type of digital banality that makes older generations roll their eyes at ‘those darn kids and their internets’.
But the fine citizens of the internet are a clever bunch.
Boston Celtics reporter for Masslive Jay King pointed out on Twitter that the last time Isaiah Thomas tweeted out those same side-eyed emojis the Celtics signed Al Horford. Horford of course was a huge free agency signing for the Celtics. Bleacher Report went as far as calling it the biggest free agency signing in Boston Celtics history. That is pretty big.
Naturally, the Celtics fans went crazy online with the possibilities of who the team may be bringing in to compete with the Cavs, Wizards, and others in the Eastern conference.
But the rumor mill did not end there . . .
John Healy of the New York Daily News reported that the Celtics followed New York Knicks star Carmelo Anthony on Instagram. Carmelo Anthony has been the subject of trade rumors for several weeks as the Knicks front office seemed pretty determined to move him.
On its own, this is not much of a story, but when coupled with the Isaiah Thomas tweet, things are starting to add up. Many thought for sure that Carmello would be headed up to Boston.
But it still did not stop there . . .
Andre Drummond, the center for the Detroit Pistons tweeted out his own set of side-eyed emojis while retweeting Thomas’ original tweet. The Pistons have reportedly been interested in trading Drummond as well leading people to believe that perhaps a major deal was in the works for the Celtics. Well that, or, Drummond was just trolling everyone.
Celtics Management gets involved:
The rumor mill had grown so rampant that media who covered the Celtics began bombarding the Boston Celtics front office with questions looking for any and all information they could get their hands on ahead of the trade deadline.
Celtics assistant general manager Mike Zarren then got in on the twitter game tweeting:
“Life in 2017: A player randomly tweets and ~20 reporters instantly txt or call you demanding to know when the trade is happening. Lol.”
For what it's worth, Zarren would neither confirm nor deny that the Celtics were making a move.
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