NBA: Player attributes once seen as a flaw that are now an asset

4. Isaiah Thomas

Drafted 60th overall in 2014 Isaiah Thomas was a first-round talent that slid all that way simply due to his size. The Sacramento Kings took a flyer on Thomas with the final pick in the draft and it certainly paid off.

NBADraft.net said Thomas was “Very small, even for a point guard” and that his “ability to get inside will be largely negated by the size of NBA players.”. It was a fair criticism of Thomas to say he was small, but to say that his ability to get inside would be negated by the size of NBA players was grossly unwarranted and inaccurate.

Isaiah Thomas uses his lack of size to his advantage by using his quickness and low center of gravity to get into the paint and make floaters or to bank layups high off the glass. In the 2016-17 season with the Boston Celtics, Thomas averaged 28.9 points per game and was fifth in MVP voting. More impressively he was fifth in the league in points in the paint during that season at 9.6 points in the paint per game, according to NBA.com.

Isaiah Thomas had unequivocally proven these pre-draft doubts about him wrong but unfortunately, his career has been most recently derailed by injury.