SACRAMENTO, Calif. — There was no goodbye, if anybody was looking or listening for it. There was nothing to say. At the disappointing end of this hectic Golden State Warriors season on Tuesday night, Klay Thompson stopped for a few seconds on his way off the Golden 1 Center floor and silently scanned a few sections of the crowd with a somber look on his face.
He didn’t scowl. He didn’t drop his head. He just looked around, quietly absorbed the scene, nodded his head once or twice and walked into the locker room. Then Klay didn’t speak to reporters that I could tell and wasn’t asked to go to the podium. The Warriors plan for Klay and other players to speak to the media in the season-ending sessions on Wednesday.
So it didn’t feel like a Klay Thompson farewell, at least not to the Warriors. It seemed more like a night of reflection, acceptance and possibly adjustment. He’s not the player he used to be. He really proved that in the Warriors’ season-ending 118-94 Play-In loss to the Sacramento Kings, when Klay missed all 10 of his shots, didn’t score a point and, like the rest of his team, was overwhelmed by the younger, faster Kings.
But he’s still an integral part of the Warriors’ identity and someone the top guys can’t imagine as an ex-Warrior, which also was clearly evident after the game when Steve Kerr, Stephen Curry and Draymond Green were asked about Klay’s future now that he’s weeks away from hitting unrestricted free agency.
I asked Kerr after his presser: Does it hurt you to think that Klay might’ve ended his Warriors career like this?
“No, no, I’m not thinking that way,” Kerr told me. “It hurts to see him struggle out there. But it doesn’t take away from who he still is as a player. In the second half of the year, he was really, really good. There’s still a lot of good years left for Klay. I really believe that.
“And I really believe he’ll be back. I think he’s meant to be a Warrior for life.”
Sometimes the biggest clunkers just happen to come at the end of a season and you just have to live with it, Kerr said. It happens to everybody.
“I shot 2 for 13 in the 1988 Final Four (while he played for Arizona) and I still think about it,” Kerr said. “I can’t separate myself from that game still, you know, 36 years later. It’s part of the deal as a shooter, especially as someone who doesn’t get to the line a ton, like Klay doesn’t, some nights they just don’t go in, and when it happens in a big game, it’s incredibly painful. But it’s all part of it. There’s a lot of pain in this business, and we’re feeling it tonight.
“And Klay’s really feeling it, and I feel it for him. But Klay’s a warrior, and I think he’s a Warrior for life. I think he’ll be back.”
Of course, the Warriors’ decision isn’t up to Kerr. It’s up to Joe Lacob and Mike Dunleavy Jr., who surely can’t be planning to carry this season’s $400 million payroll commitment into next season. This isn’t a title-winning roster anymore. It’s not anywhere close. There will be cuts. Lacob has already signaled that.
Chris Paul almost certainly won’t be back. Klay is up in the air — chased by other teams and asked by the Warriors to come back at a reduced salary.
Which means this could be mainly Klay’s call, as Draymond pointed out. The Warriors will surely offer Klay something that isn’t embarrassing, maybe around $20 million a year for two or three years. Will another team offer more? Would Klay just want a change of scenery? Or would he take a team-friendly deal from the Warriors just to stay with Curry, Draymond and Kerr and give it a few more shots?
Klay played well enough in the second half of this season to attract interest from any team that needs an all-time shooter. But adding in his 3-for-19 outing in the Game 6 clincher against the Los Angeles Lakers last season, this is now two consecutive complete duds in elimination games; and after his two major leg injuries, he’ll never be an above-average defender again. So the idea that Klay can carry a team through the playoffs has been all but extinguished.
The Warriors almost certainly can’t count on Klay in anything close to the same way they’ve counted on him lately. They probably need to make him a full-time bench player. Maybe 20 minutes a game as a designated shooter who plays more if the shots are falling. It’s something Klay struggled to accept this season, then adjusted, started playing very well, then found himself back in the starting lineup. But that lineup was utterly obliterated by the Kings and almost certainly would’ve been crushed by any of the young, fast teams higher in the West standings.
Jonathan Kuminga, Moses Moody and Brandin Podziemski — the three youngest main-rotation players — were the only Warriors who seemed able to play at the Kings’ speed on Tuesday. And they weren’t close to enough. Simply put, the Warriors have to get more athletic.
“Yeah, we do,” Kerr said. “We do. You could see tonight, we were overwhelmed, overpowered, all the offensive boards, loose balls. They beat us to all that stuff. So we’ve gotta continue to try to add athletic guys who can help us win games like tonight where we just seemed to get overwhelmed.”
Klay Thompson had a strong second half of the season, but his 0-for-10 outing Tuesday was a reminder of the challenges facing the Warriors’ current roster. (Ezra Shaw / Getty Images)
The Warriors probably can’t think of Klay as a core rotation player next season. But he’s still a foundational figure … who can get red hot four or five times a month. What’s the right deal for that? We’ll see. Maybe it’ll be easy to come up with for both sides. Maybe it won’t.
But the signals on Tuesday night were that there is a path out there for Klay to come back to the Warriors, if Klay understands the new realities. And I think he’s understanding it.
Yes, Klay has value. And being a member of the Warriors has value. Neither is as valuable as it used to be. Could all this lead Klay and the Warriors to stay together? It’s possible.
“He’s got to make the best decision for him,” Draymond said. “Team’s got a decision to make. They’ll make the best decision for the team. … I don’t think there’s any scenario where Klay leaves and that’s the best decision for this team or organization. …
“(The organization has) shown nothing but respect, loyalty, love, trust to us. So I’ve got no reason to go into it like, ‘Man, they’re not going to do right by Klay.’ They did right by me. They’ve done right by Steph. They’ve done right by all of us. Klay tore his ACL (in the 2019 finals). They paid him $160 million. So I have no reason that our ownership group aren’t going to take care of us the way we’ve taken care of this organization.”
Curry, Draymond and Kerr are all signed for several more years. None of them are going anywhere. Which just leaves Klay. And in an odd way, the less valuable he is to everybody else the more likely it is that he’ll finish his career as a Warrior.
“Everybody’s going to talk about one game,” Curry said. “I know he wanted to play better. But we go through so much over 82 games, and the fact that he was able to turn his season around with a new role and adjusting to come off the bench for a long period and then back in the starting lineup, just really having fun playing basketball and being at peace out there. I’m more worried about that.
“I know he’s a true champion. We all prepare ourselves to play our best when the lights are bright. When it doesn’t happen, nobody needs to tell ya anything. Because all we want to do is win.”
Steph, how confident are you that Klay will be on the Warriors with you and Draymond next season?
“I can never see myself not with those two guys,” Curry said. “I understand this league changes and there’s so many things that go into it. And we’re not going to play forever. But we’ve experienced so much together. At the end of the day, again, I know they want to win and I know I want to win, and that’s all I’m worried about.”
So there’s the situation: The Warriors absolutely can’t just put the same team out there next season and expect to be any more competitive than they were on Tuesday. This was a slow, old and incredibly expensive roster that didn’t even make it to the playoffs. But the Warriors also absolutely can’t ignore the value of keeping these three players together for as long as it is possible, even if roles and salaries have to be reduced. We’ll see if Klay is ready to accept and absorb it, silently, loudly or whatever way he wishes.
GO DEEPER
Warriors’ Steve Kerr on Klay Thompson: ‘We want him back’
(Photo of Klay Thompson leaving the floor after Tuesday’s loss: Ezra Shaw / Getty Images)
