It was about excellent timing, cohesion, competitive urgency and the perfect amount of deadpan spontaneity to make it feel fresh, funny, heartbreaking and occasionally poetic.
It was all about Klay Thompson being true to himself within the Golden State Warriors structure and almost everything working out. With Klay alongside Stephen Curry and Draymond Green, why wouldn’t it work? And now that Klay’s singular run with the Warriors — 13 seasons of fire and brilliance — is coming to a close, you can look back and understand how it all lined up. How many ways it could have gone wrong. How Klay simply came into the franchise and fit in with everyone as the dynasty began and evolved.
And how Klay’s rocky final season and impending departure this offseason to the Dallas Mavericks in a sign-and-trade deal that would likely net the Warriors a trade exception is a clear sign that what held the Warriors dynasty together (and won four championships) is now unalterably falling apart.
Yes, the Warriors could come back together in a successful way — perhaps quickly, but likely over a longer period. The Warriors rebounded from the loss of Kevin Durant and predictions of the dynasty’s immediate demise to win their fourth championship three years later and could find something now, in the waning days of Curry’s prominence. But it will be different without Klay. It will be harder. And it will feel much less connected to the best days.
The setback started a while ago, but the emotional dividing line is this offseason and this departure. Perfect timing, as always, Klay. Absolutely perfect timing.
All of Klay’s greatest rises and worst moments in his Warriors career were down to timing. Perfect timing. Spectacular timing. Terrible timing. Comeback timing. Let’s review some of them:
• In June 2011, Klay was handpicked by Jerry West to be drafted at the perfect time to be the perfect running partner for Curry in a way that Monta Ellis could never be. Would Curry have been great if he never had Klay by his side? Yes, absolutely. But there’s no question that for Curry to reach his zenith, he needed a baseline partner with size, who could be a lethal shooting threat without needing to dribble the ball, who could guard almost anyone and who was more comfortable in a quieter corner of this noisy circus.
Klay embodied all of those things so completely that for decades he will be the poster child for championship building: If you have an alpha superstar, what you need next is a Klay. Then you’ll start counting championships (if you have a Draymond, too).
Klay flourished because he had Curry as a teammate, of course, but together they were the greatest shooting line in NBA history, and all credit goes to former coach Mark Jackson for saying so early and making sure people kept hearing him say it.
• Klay came of age as a two-way star at the time he needed it most, a few years into his career, just as the Warriors dynasty was preparing to launch in 2014-15. Klay’s defense in the early championship years was always under-recognized (just ask James Harden about that) and his toughness was a cornerstone of the Warriors’ identity.
• Plus, as the pressure mounted, Klay’s wry humor became increasingly recognized and increasingly important. He became “China Klay” during offseason trips. He signed toasters. And he was the vital comic relief during the Warriors’ trip to the Hamptons to recruit Durant, breaking up the room after Durant, Curry and others were seriously weighing what was best for Nike (Durant’s shoe company) and Under Armour (Curry’s).
Hey, will this be good for Anta too? Klay asked.
• Klay put together his greatest moments with magical timing: His 37 points in the third quarter in January 2015, when the Warriors’ engines were really starting to roar; his epic 41-point performance (with a then-playoff-record 11 3-pointers) in Game 6 of the 2016 Western Conference finals in Oklahoma City is the most astonishing individual performance of this era; and I’ll always point to Klay’s 60-point three-quarter torrent in December 2016 as witnesses for two particularly accomplished teammates: Curry and Durant, both at the peak of their powers.
In 13 seasons with the Warriors, Klay Thompson made the fourth-most 3-pointers in the NBA over that span, despite missing two seasons due to injuries. (Jed Jacobsohn/NBAE via /Keynote USA/Getty Images)
• Klay’s quiet competitiveness really helped propel the Warriors in the midst of the dynastic run, when Curry had established himself as an elder statesman of the game, Draymond was entrenched in his role as an agitator and the locker room probably needed a little more from Klay, who delivered.
“I’m not going to mention the names of the competitors, but he walks around the facility and holds a grudge,” Bob Myers once told me about Klay. “You know, he has a deep respect for the game. So anytime someone seeks individual accolades instead of winning, he gets very upset. He despises the individual pursuit of greatness instead of team success.”
Klay was the Warriors’ mainstay, who flashed two, three, then four fingers at booing crowds to signify titles won, who even yelled about his rings to key opponents, who blurted out that he was of course not going to allow shots after Durant arrived and who answered every slight in the minutes after winning Title No. 4.
So it was no surprise that Klay struggled so publicly with his diminishing role on the Warriors last season. It was right before our eyes. With Klay, it was just a regular occurrence.
• Klay suffered his most serious injuries at the worst possible time. His ACL tear came in Game 6 of the 2019 Finals, when Klay was at his best, at the peak of his prime, pushing the Warriors enough to give them a chance in that series against the Toronto Raptors. Then the injury. Then free agency. Then he got a max contract with the Warriors. Then he tore his Achilles the following fall and missed another season and a half, and that was it.
• And now the crunch time has come for him to become the first pivotal figure to become a free agent after the Warriors’ best chances at continuing the dynasty have mostly faded. Remember, Draymond’s deal was signed a year ago, after the Warriors made it to the second round of the playoffs and could still conceive of grander things. And Curry has already signed multiple max extensions and will be offered as many as he wants to sign.
This time around, the Klay deal was overshadowed by a rough season for both team and player and a crushing loss in the Play-In tournament, when Klay himself went 0-for-10. The timing was terrible. The timing was fate. The contract came exactly when the Warriors were wondering whether it was worth bidding against other teams and perhaps themselves to bring Klay back, when Brandin Podziemski and Moses Moody might already be moving in to take many of his minutes. And the contract came when Klay was clearly ready to try something else, even to the point of accepting less money to do so.
Had this negotiation taken place last summer, it’s likely that Klay and the Warriors would have been in a much more optimistic position and would have agreed to extend this relationship. But it came this summer, when the situation had changed.
Is this the end? It’s the official end of existence at the highest level, a sign that the golden days are, in fact, over. But in reality, they ended a while ago. Klay’s decline was part of that. Yes, his return from injuries was incredible and helped make the 2022 run seem almost unreal. But there was a price to the comeback journey that Klay is paying now, unless a career rejuvenation is on the horizon with his next team. And there was a price for the Warriors, too: Because they won it in 2022, they had to keep relying on the veterans who gave them that title. It was common sense.
And most of all, the decline was due to their failure to Draft James Wiseman, Jonathan Kuminga and Moody not yet proving themselves as playoff-ready players, Jordan Poole going down a season ago, Draymond’s struggles (which helped start Poole’s decline) and Andrew Wiggins and Kevon Looney’s performances plummeting. And now they’ve lost Paul George, couldn’t get anything for Chris Paul, and Klay is leaving.
Unless the Warriors can do something spectacular (owner Joe Lacob and general manager Mike Dunleavy Jr. added versatile guard De’Anthony Melton to the mid-level exception on Monday and will definitely try to do more), their biggest accomplishment this offseason might just be getting out of the second division and well below the luxury tax line. No, they don’t hang up banners for doing that.
How will Curry react to all of this? I don’t know. He’s been very patient with the situation and has remained positive. He almost certainly won’t give up on a team that still has Draymond, Wiggins, Kuminga and Podziemski. But Curry will want to see what else the Warriors do. And if next season ends the dynasty. It really could.
Players age. We notice it especially when it happens to the greats, because they are the ones who matter the most. Klay was important in everything that has happened to the Warriors over the past 13 years. When he declined, the franchise declined. And now he is gone. They still have Curry and Draymond, but they will go, too, sooner or later. They will fade. The light will go out. It already has. Klay’s departure is not the cause of all that, but it is proof of it.
GO DEEPER
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(Photo of Klay Thompson celebrating the Warriors’ 2022 title: Thearon W. Henderson//Keynote USA/Getty Images)
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