by: Ken Cheng
A few hours after Klay Thompson erupted for 52 points to lead the Warriors to another blowout victory over the Kings, last Friday, a friend forwarded me an e-mail exchange he and I had over the summer, during the height of the Kevin Love trade rumors.
From: John [REDACTED]
To: Ken Cheng
Subject: Trade Klay??
Date: July 18, 2014
What do you think about this trade? Would you be willing to include Klay to get KLove? I’m torn!
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From: Ken Cheng
To: John [REDACTED]
Subject: Re: Trade Klay??
Date: July 18, 2014
The only thing I’m torn about is which airline we should use to book Klay’s flight to Minny. Dubs gotta make this happen. IT’S MOTHERF#*KIN’ KLOVE!!!!
(PS: I say we send Klay away in style…Virgin America first class!)
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At the time, Kevin Love was a Top 10 NBA player; with an elite skill set at the power forward position that seemed perfectly suited to lift the Warriors into legitimate title contender status. Klay Thompson, on the other hand, was merely a very good player — with just enough holes in his game to make the idea of including him in a package for Love not just defensible, but preferable.
Seven months can change a whole lot.
After 43 games, “Merely very good” Klay Thompson’s evolution into “3-time-Western Conference Player Of The Week and Probable All-Star” Klay Thompson has become an integral component of the Warriors’ rise to a league best 36-7 record. Consequently, Thompson is both validating the Warriors’ decision to keep him (along with the subsequent max contract that followed) and making the arguments that were made to trade him (and the subsequent criticism of that new contract) seem downright foolish in retrospect.
Should we be surprised, though?
As the rumors were swirling, Klay advocates routinely cited his defense and penchant for yearly offensive improvement as evidence that we had not yet seen him approach his basketball ceiling. Examining his advanced stats before this season, however, made this claim uncertain. Thompson’s numbers, last season, reflected only modest increases over the previous season — something that could have also been said of the year before. While these incremental – if not quite mind-blowing – improvements indicated a player on the rise, they were hardly predictive of a player destined to crack the league’s elite in anything other than 3-point shooting and maybe perimeter D. This is why Thompson’s easily visible progression this year has been such a revelation. Record-breaking weeks aside, the increases in Thompson’s traditional and advanced stats point to the same conclusion observers have arrived at via the eye test: Klay Thompson has made “the leap” from really good role player to straight up G, NBA, superstar.
Thompson now ranks among the league leaders in several key categories, including some in which he had previously been closer to league average. He’s 7th in the league in scoring, 9th in PER (a staggering 8.6 point increase), 12th in True Shooting % (a +6% improvement), and 9th in Win Shares/48, among others. These coincide with career highs in more traditional stats; he’s leading the team with 23 PPG (up 4.6 over last year on a career best 48% shooting), is averaging 3 assists (1 more per game than last year), and shooting 87% from the line (a +7% increase in accuracy on 2 more FTAs per game). What’s even more incredible is that these increases are coming despite Thompson playing 3 less minutes per game this year.
Normally, statistical jumps like this prove to be unsustainable, small sample size, flukes. But this is where it’s important to remember that Klay Thompson is only 24 years old. Theoretically, he hasn’t even reached his “prime” yet – generally acknowledged to begin during a player’s age 25-26 season. Thompson’s year, so far, even compares favorably to Steph Curry’s age 24/4th season (which came in ’12-’13), with Thompson exceeding Curry’s Points/100 possessions, FG%, 3P%, FTAs, TS%, and PER.
There’s no guarantee that Thompson’s career year will also lead one day to a Curry-like run into the League MVP discussion – in truth, his fellow Splash Brother’s presence on the team probably makes that unlikely. But that his stats now make this even a possibility worth discussing seems like a major shift in the way we assess Thompson’s value. No less than Magic Johnson proclaimed that Thompson had now joined LeBron James as one of the two best all around players in the league. All this about a player many, including myself, were willing to ship away in a trade package seven months ago for a guy who now could generously be called a 3rd option on a 26-20 team.
However one may have felt about the trade rumors as they were happening, it would be very difficult to find anyone willing to do that trade today. Not with Thompson flirting with “Top 10 Players In The League” status nightly and especially not with the Warriors playing their best basketball in franchise history. This is why last Friday night – after my friend forwarded me our e-mails from the summer – I had no problem responding with the following:
From: John [REDACTED]
To: Ken Cheng
Subject: FW: Re: Trade Klay??
Date: January 23, 2015
Ha! Remember this?!
>> Message forwarded below
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From: Ken Cheng
To: John [REDACTED]
Subject: Re: FW: Re: Trade Klay??
Date: January 23, 2015
What do you want from me? I’m an idiot.
(PS: But we can still send Klay on Virgin America first class – TO THE F#*KING ALL STAR GAME!)
Totally agree with this article. But golden state needs to sign another backup post player to david lee. Jump shooting cannot be counted upn–even though its our strength