The Boston Celtics are coming off a very impressive and surprising season in which they made the playoffs as a really young team. This season the Celtics hope to build on last year's success and part of that will be point guard Isaiah Thomas. Thomas has stated publicly that he would love to be part of the Celtics starting lineup but that reportedly is unlikely, according to Chris Forsberg of ESPN Boston.
Head coach Brad Stevens has previously said that it was a possibility that Thomas would be a starter in the 2015-16 season but a lot of the Celtics writers don't see that happening. The expectation is that Thomas will come off the bench in his typical sixth man role while Marcus Smart starts at point guard and Avery Bradley starts at the two guard position.
Thomas is coming off a season in which he finished second in Sixth Man of the Year award voting and he has established himself as one of the top scorers in the league. Many of the writers believe that Thomas is the best offensive player on the Celtics but they also believe that his skill set works perfectly with his role of coming off the bench. Regardless of whether Thomas starts or not he will likely get big minutes and be on the floor at the end of games for Boston.
The 5 foot-9, 26 year old was acquired by the Celtics via trade last season and was a huge help to the team after being brought on board. In 21 games (0 starts) Thomas averaged 19 points and 5.4 assists in 26 minutes per game. Thomas' numbers per 36 minutes for the Celtics were top notch as he averaged 26.4 points and 7.5 assists per 36 minutes.
An argument could be made that if Thomas were to start his numbers would go up significantly and the Celtics would be better for it. The counter argument is that Smart is the future of the team at the point guard position and brings more to the table defensively while Thomas is a straight up scorer who doesn't play much of any defense which is better suited for a bench role. No matter what role Thomas is in though he will have a huge impact for the Celtics this season and will more than likely be in the game during crunch time.
