Almost everyone has a favorite professional sports team. Some of us have several, at least one for each of America's big three team sports: baseball, basketball and football. A few of us also have one for each of the collegiate versions of those sports.
But unless you have a rooting interest in some NBA team other than the Boston Celtics - and all of you Los Angeles Lakers fans are excused from even pretending to like the Celtics - how can you not cheer as loud as possible for Boston point guard Isaiah Thomas to succeed from this point forward in the postseason?
OK, I'll admit to having been enchanted with Celtic green from about the fourth grade forward, going back to the heydays of Bill Russell, K.C. Jones, Hondo Havlicek, Sam Jones, Don Nelson, Bailey Howell and the rest of those 1960s icons who so successfully ran up and down the old Boston Garden's uneven parquet boards in black Chuck Taylors.
But this isn't about the Celtics possibly winning their 18th NBA title nearly so much as it is about the undersized Thomas winning his first. Because if any player in NBA history deserves to have something good happen to him, it's Thomas for all he's so gracefully and manfully endured in recent weeks.
In case you somehow missed this while sweating out your favorite college football team's spring depth chart or the onset of baseball or the start of the NHL playoffs, Thomas lost his sister Chyna on April 15 when she was killed in a single-car crash.
Somehow he willed his way onto the court the next day as the Celtics opened the playoffs at home against the Chicago Bulls and scored 33 points, even though the Big Green lost. Then he played game two. And three. And four. And five. And six.
And when those efforts were finally enough to subdue the Bulls four games to two in the best-of-seven series, he got on a plane in Chicago late Friday night and flew to Washington state for the second time in a little more than a week to deliver the eulogy at Chyna's Saturday funeral in Tacoma.
Then the 5-foot-8 guard, the league's littlest big man, caught a flight back to Boston late Saturday night, arriving in Beantown at 4 a.m. After getting roughly four hours sleep he was somehow back at TD Garden, ready to play the opening game of Sunday's Eastern Conference semifinal against the Washington Wizards. And this time his 33 points sparked a Celtics triumph from an early 17-point hole.
Yet because the basketball gods apparently thought that effort wasn't amazing enough on its own, they saw to it that Thomas got his left front tooth knocked completely out early in the game.
So instead of practicing or relaxing, perhaps even sleeping on Monday in preparation for tonight's second game between the Celtics and the Wizards, Thomas spent several hours in a dentist's chair getting his tooth reattached. Oh, what fun.
"I've had teammates that I've always clowned about their teeth being out," Thomas said Sunday. "And now I'm one of them."
In truth, he's the only one like him in the NBA, the shortest player among the tallest collection of professional athletes in the world. But that's not what makes him special. Especially not now.
No, what makes Thomas special is how he's somehow handled the shocking loss of his sister well enough to be the best player on the court time and time again at the most crucial time of the year.
"I think that what he's been able to do is, I think I've used the word 'unfathomable,' and I'd stick with that," Celtics coach Brad Stevens said following Sunday's win. "I can't imagine being able to do it myself, if I were in the same situation. He's incredible."
It is incredible. Particularly when one considers Thomas's own mindset in the hours immediately following Chyna's death.
"When I found out the news, I wanted to give up and quit - and never in my life have I ever thought about quitting," Thomas said during the funeral. "I realized quitting isn't an option. That's the easy way out. I will keep going for my sister, as I know she wouldn't want me to stop. I love you, Chyna, and I miss you so much. And everything I do for the rest of my life will be for you."
In a way, it's for all of us. Because if Thomas was unwilling to walk away from his team - even for only one game over a tragedy such as Chyna's death - the rest of us surely can find the character and professionalism to overcome far less painful obstacles on a daily basis.
But for Thomas, the obstacles will continue to rise for at least one more night. Today would have been Chyna's 23rd birthday. Thomas will celebrate it or endure it or quite probably both, by attempting to win yet another playoff game for the Celts. Unfathomable, indeed.
Of the Sunday hole in Thomas's smile where his tooth once was, Boston teammate and close friend Avery Bradley said, "I like it. He looks a little tougher."
Perhaps. But can you really look even the slightest little bit tougher when you're already the toughest soul around?
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com