NEWSLETTER
The Golden State Warriors and Klay Thompson are set to part ways, per ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
Thompson intends to sign a three-year, $50 million deal with the Dallas Mavericks. The deal will reportedly come via a sign-and-trade between the two teams. Josh Green is also expected to land in Charlotte in the deal.
Klay Thompson Leaves the Warriors
Signs started to point toward a breakup between Thompson and the Warriors in recent days, but that doesn’t make the news any less noteworthy. Thompson will forever be viewed as a member of the Warriors organization, as he was a fundamental part of the team’s past four championships.
He made five All-Star appearances with the franchise, as well as two All-NBA Third Teams and an All-Defensive Second Team over his 13-year-long career with the organization. Unfortunately, two of those seasons were spent on the sideline, as he tore his ACL in the 2019 NBA Finals before suffering an Achilles tendon injury during his recovery. He missed the entirety of the 2019-20 and 2020-21 seasons.
While Thompson has struggled to look like the same consistent two-way player since the injuries, he’s remained one of the league’s elite 3-point shooters. He holds a 41.3 percent clip over his career on 7.6 attempts per game. There is no question this lethal stroke will add another dynamic layer to the Mavs offense, which just suffered a loss to the Boston Celtics in the NBA Finals.
One of the major questions now is what will the Warriors do to fill Thompson’s role? Do they have a major move up their sleeve? What about the other teams that missed out on Thompson? The Lakers were rumored as one of the final two destinations for the future HOFer, as LeBron James opted out of his current deal to potentially open up more spending power to land another key player.
DeMar DeRozan is still available and may have to be someone the Lakers begin to consider. The same could be said about Zach LaVine.
More on the LA’s interest in DeMar DeRozan here …
