Klay Thompson is Earning His Keep With Golden State Warriors
At the end of October, the Golden State Warriors inked their starting shooting guard Klay Thompson to a four-year, $70 million contract that some would argue he wasn’t worth — especially in consideration that the fourth-year guard is making roughly $5 million more than his fellow Splash brethren Stephen Curry per year.
The obvious question at hand was whether or not Thompson was worth close to a max contract? Or better yet, is he worth passing up then-Minnesota Timberwolves star Kevin Love for?
To answer both questions, yes.
On an individual scale, Thompson went on a red-hot streak that easily attributed to Golden State’s collective streak to kick off the 2014-2015 season, being the last team to remain undefeated until last Sunday when they fell to the Phoenix Suns. Interestingly enough, Thompson sat out that game due to a sprained right hand.
Thompson is averaging 24.7 points over the first six games of the season and shooting 48 percent from the field and 47.4 percent from behind the arc, with Curry only averaging two more points than him in scoring. Thompson is also getting to the line more effectively, shooting from the charity stripe an average of six times at the start of this season, a product of head coach Steve Kerr‘s new offense geared toward the strengths of this team and the unique offensive talent combos at his disposal.
And perhaps that is what makes Thompson so crucial for Golden State, in that he serves as a key cog in Kerr’s offensive approach to this team.
At its present state, the Warriors’ backcourt and its depth are a matchup nightmare for most teams: if Kerr aims for a high-octane scoring matchup, he has the Splash Brothers. When he wants to keep it at a more defensive mind, he can throw in Thompson and backup point guard Shaun Livingston in the mix. Curry and offseason signing Leandro Barbosa make for an equally high-scoring backcourt, but the ideal is for the Splash Brothers to play together because they balance each other out on both ends of the floor. And with Thompson’s offensive game only steadily getting better and more versatile, that backcourt is only going to get more difficult to handle.
The Thompson signing is more of a reflection of how vital he is to this squad in the ways in which he mirrors Curry’s ability to rack up points and compliments his ailments — in other words his defense and length. No one is going to deny Curry’s ability to drop bombs on any given night but his offensive creativity and skills as a floor general would be devalued if Thompson and other players didn’t exist to finish. Where one offensive threat may go dry, there’s another draining buckets from the other side of the floor.
When the question arises if any NBA squad is a title contender, there are usually three key requirements that have to be filled: a top-rated defense, a superstar that knows when to take over and isn’t afraid to hit the big shots and depth coming off of the bench.
Would Love have met those requirements in Thompson’s place? For one, Love isn’t known for his defensive prowess, and in Thompson’s absence, the question of a starting shooting guard compliment to Curry would be left to a possible desperation free agent signing, as is the past tendency of the Warriors front office when presented with those issues.
In hindsight, Thompson aids those requirements, if not is a direct source of it. While Warriors fans had many “what if” questions surrounding the potential Love-Thompson-Lee trade, Curry, Thompson and the rest of Golden State have already given a taste of what the answers to those questions may be.
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