When Klay Thompson is in a good place, when his guards are down, when basketball’s therapeutic properties have delivered in guiding him to his center, a reservoir of appreciation and chill — that’s when the paper planes come out.
“Alright, for takeoff,” he said as he stood from his seat after his postgame news conference to fly the box score he endowed with aviation. He was pleased with its trajectory, with its speed. “Oh, look at that. F-16. Nice.”
Klay Thompson is all the way back… Making paper airplanes with the stat sheet in post-game press. pic.twitter.com/j0BaArmjqh
— Mavs Fans For Life (@MavsFansForLife) October 25, 2024
An appropriate display following a 120-109 win over Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs, a successful launch of Thompson’s Mavs era before a national TV audience. One third-quarter sequence underscored the fluidity of his Texas introduction. Luka Dončić corraled a rebound from a Wembanyama miss and dribbled down the right side of the floor in transition. A trailing Thompson jogged down the left side and stepped right into a pass from Dončić.
Three-ball. Left wing. Splash. Like riding a bike.
Thursday’s line: 22 points on 7-of-13 shooting, including 6-for-10 from 3-point range. He was efficient and comfortable in his 26 minutes. He added seven rebounds and three steals for good measure.
“From the experience I’ve gained,” Thompson told reporters after the game, “you can never be too high throughout the regular season. We have really big goals. So one good win at home is not going to satisfy us.”
His specialty is the transition 3. This means the signature of his Hall of Fame career is, for most of basketball history, a bad shot.
Since 2011, Thompson has gleefully spurned fast-break layups for deep high-variance daggers. It’s normal now to cast a 3-pointer while pushing the ball up-court with a numbers advantage. That’s because Thompson, along with his superstar backcourt mate in Golden State, remolded hoop paradigms with their devastating in-motion 3-pointers against backpedaling defenses. Nothing is more Klay Thompson than thumbing his nose at decades of basketball wisdom by running to the arc, thirsty for a chance to chuck it from 25 feet.
Such is why a noted symbolism exists, poetry even, in Thompson being a Maverick. This choice he made, choosing to sign with Dallas, feels a bit like a low-percentage heave, a hoist with as much risk of missing as it does splashing triumphantly.
How so? Success requires him to do in Dallas what he couldn’t do, and wouldn’t do, in the Bay Area. Only with more pressure for immediate returns, no grace stored up from prior heroics, in an environment that could potentially clash with his ethos.
But this is Klay Thompson of whom we speak. The jaw-dropper. The tough-shot taker. Owner of Rancho Santa Margarita’s biggest marbles ever. Who bailed out a dynasty. Whose legacy includes astonishing feats. Thompson never met a shot he couldn’t make. Never played a game he couldn’t win. Never heard a doubter he couldn’t silence.
It wouldn’t be Thompson if it weren’t harrowing. If he didn’t make you hold your breath before releasing it in agony or ecstasy.
Thursday night in Dallas was all ecstasy.
“Just an awesome feeling,” Thompson told reporters afterward. “You only get the first time of something so often. So to experience that and hear the roar from the crowd was really and I will cherish that moment for the rest of my life.”
The Golden State rebel, who’s spent a career making disengagement look appealing, took the harder route. At 34 years old, in the twilight of his career, he left the basketball palace he built. And he didn’t return to his actual home, Southern California, where his family and the Los Angeles Lakers awaited with open arms. Nope. Thompson dipped to Texas. He moved up the standings in the West by venturing south. Mining for former glory in a foreign land.
“If you ask any of us,” Kyrie Irving said during media day last month, “we feel like we got better as a team. We got better as a group that has leadership and also experience, especially on that championship stage. … I feel like our dreams can be possible because he’s here now. He’s added some great value to our championship aspirations.”
For anyone following closely over the last several seasons, that sounds both plausible and concerning. Like a transition 3 late in a close game.
Because Irving could be right. The embrace of Dallas might be what he needed. The vibes they’ve developed, the protection the organization offers its stars from the demands of their status, the general overt kindness of Texas, can be warm enough to settle a spirit. And that’s what Thompson seems to need.
Of course it could work, as his regular-season debut with Dallas suggested. The Mavericks are the reigning Western Conference champs for a reason. And Thompson, the ideal of him, fits perfectly with what they want to do. Dončić will get him looks. He looked comfortable in his role as co-star, in delivering the many intangibles he can bring at his best. And his new superstar cohorts appeared appropriately eager to welcome him to the fold.
“Luka makes the game easier for not just myself but everybody in this arena,” Thompson said in the on-court interview on TNT. “The gravity he demands. His passing ability is second to none. And I’m here to help him try to be one of the greatest. We know it’s his team. The show runs through him. But it takes the whole squad to go where we want to go.”
However, Thompson’s ability to be good and contribute to winning was never a concern. The issue is how does he, and now how does Dallas, handle it when he doesn’t play well. Because, if the last few years are any indication, some nights he won’t.
Little has been ideal for Thompson since June 2019. He’s been, by sheer force of will, trying to recapture the level robbed from his prime. Five years of soul searching, of faith jousting with reality. He’s spent twice as much time trying to rescue his peak than he had with it. The result has been more moments of malcontent, yelling at people about four rings, than those that mesmerize.
What he managed to accomplish after missing two and a half seasons — following a torn ACL in the 2019 NBA Finals and a torn Achilles in November 2020 — acquitted him sufficiently. He won a championship. He averaged more than 20 points in back-to-back seasons. He set a career-high in 3-pointers made in a season with 301, shooting 41.2 percent in the process.
But if you know anything about Thompson, such was but validation for his inner goon. Merit for his conviction that he’s still Klay.
What happens if this doesn’t work? What if his defiance, his preference for the challenge, has this time led him astray?
It’s a daunting proposition. Because one thing is for sure: So many people love Klay Thompson. Dallas got a glimpse on Thursday of his generational charm.
“Blue is my favorite color,” he said. “And Mavs blue looks good on me.”
Those who know him best genuinely want Thompson to succeed, to be fulfilled. It just feels right when Thompson is free. His fame provided an unspoken permission to sing like no one is listening and dance like no one is watching. But it also makes it tougher to witness the toll his struggle can take.
Thompson didn’t want to concede his role with the Warriors. Coming off the bench, ending games watching, a smaller role in the offense — none of it seemed acceptable to Thompson, a right of refusal he’s earned. He’d have moments where he seemed to understand and even embrace his new existence. But he’d find his way back to rebellion. Twice with the Warriors’ season on the line, he hunted for his former self and came up empty: 3-for-29 in Golden State’s last two elimination games.
Now he’s on a Mavericks squad that came so close to a title that they smelled the Moët. He’ll likely be in bigger situations, against tougher defenses, with grander stakes than a Play-In game in Sacramento.
Thompson left because he didn’t feel the love he deserved from the Warriors. He left to escape the taunting presence of his legacy. To find rejuvenation in a fresh start, embedded by those who believe in the Klay he wants to summon. But he retreated to the safety of two ball-dominant superstars in Irving and Dončić with a history of volatility.
Most hope this works for Thompson. He deserves for this to hit. But like a stop-and-pop triple from above the break on the wing, it might not. And when a transition 3 is missed, it only highlights the easier, safer, high-percentage shot that wasn’t taken.
But this is Klay Thompson, of whom we speak. He is always willing to take that shot.
(Top photo: Sam Hodde / Getty Images)
