Tacoma’s Isaiah Thomas donating meals to UW Medical Center workers fighting coronavirus
His most famous shot for the Huskies is the only thing cold-blooded about Isaiah Thomas.
The Tacoma native, Curtis High School basketball standout, University of Washington star and two-time NBA All-Star is halfway through two donated pizza deliveries to the UW Medical Center campuses hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic.
On Tuesday, Thomas had Seattle’s Pagliacci pizza feed more than 500 doctors, nurses and cleaning staff members at three hospitals: Harborview Medical and Trauma Center, the UW Medical Center’s main hospital on the university’s flagship campus and Northwest Medical Center just north of downtown Seattle.
He will send pizzas to feed 500 more of the hospitals’ workers next Tuesday, April 14.
That’s more than 1,000 thank-yous to those on the front lines of our region’s fight against the COVID-19 outbreak.
“I want to thank all the doctors, nurses and cleaning staff at U-Dub Medicine for all that you do to try to help (us with) this virus,” Thomas said in a video he sent to UW Medical Center staff members. “My family and I appreciate you, and want you to know that we couldn’t get through this without you.
“So, thank you.”
Thomas, 31, starred from 2008-11 on the court inside Hec Edmundson Pavilion across the street from UW Medical Center. His most famous shot for the Huskies was his last-second, “cold-blooded” one that beat Arizona in the 2011 Pac-10 tournament championship game in Los Angeles.
He led Washington in points, assists, steals, minutes and into the second-round of the NCAA tournament in that 2010-11 season. After it ended Thomas left UW to enter the NBA. He was the last player drafted in 2011, by the Sacramento Kings. At 5 feet 9, he became an All-Star twice, with the Boston Celtics in 2016 and ‘17. In 2017 he finished third in the league in scoring, averaging a career-high 28.9 points per game for Boston.
His career scoring average is 18.1 points per game for seven teams across nine seasons.
Thomas played this winter for the Washington Wizards. He is currently a free agent in the NBA, which became the first major North American sports league to stop its season last month as the coronavirus spread across the continent.
Thomas’ heart has consistently been as large as his game.
He’s been giving back to his Seattle-Tacoma area throughout his time in the NBA. He hosts an annual backpack giveaway for kids in Tacoma. He comes back for the Zeke-End basketball tournament he hosts in the city each summer. He’s donated $80,000 for a new basketball facility at the Al Davies Boys & Girls Club, and more.
This story was originally published April 8, 2020 at 11:33 AM.
