Are We Sure the Warriors Still Want Klay Back?
we’ve just done a dive into uh what feels like uh at least new thoughts and commentary on the Klay Thompson situation and and and we’ll play it for you again here in just a second from the Warriors plus minus podcast with the athletic Tim calc comy and Anthony Slater and Marcus Thompson um my read on the clay thing and why I think this whole deal is difficult right now for the Warriors is that I I I think that we’ve made this largely about money and I don’t think it’s largely about money I think it is largely about role and I think it is about the way he’s being approached we don’t know Klay Thompson but we do know Klay Thompson to be someone who has big ears and big emotions right is that fair yeah okay y so if that’s fair I’m having the hardest time wrapping my head around these things that we now believe to be true with regard to the way the Warriors are approaching this off season it it seems to me that the Warriors are approaching him with two things one you’re not starting anymore two you’re not our top priority you’re goingon to have to wait I don’t know how the hell clay accepts that I feel like he will be so offended and and he can be wrong on that you can have your op I’m not saying he’s right I feel like that would offend Klay Thompson at literally the highest level yeah it makes sense that it would and if you’re Klay Thompson and you’re looking at what you’ve been for this franchise and what you’ve been as a champion a four-time champion what you overcame with not one but two catastrophic career-threatening injuries and even after that you came back and you were a champion again and you look at two years ago you led the league in three-pointers made and last year you were fourth in the league and three-pointers made you’re still a very good player you’re not the same player that you once were you’re not a lock down Defender but you’re still a starting player in this league for somebody and if the Warriors are looking at him as a sixthman or as a 30 minute a night guy or a guy who we don’t want to shoot as much as maybe he wants to shoot yeah it doesn’t have to be about the money there’s an old rap song Money Power Respect respect and it is really a three-prong thing and for clay the money not a huge Factor everyone wants every last dollar and I’m sure when you’re rich that doesn’t change he wants money power he doesn’t have the power that he once had as an aging player in the league but respect is something that all of us want all human beings want to feel that respect you and I come to work here Lucas and Grandy we have a great team we want to feel valued we want to feel valued by each other by our boss Matt nigan by our company by our co-workers all that that stuff matters maybe even more than money and the relative power so I do think that when you look at it like you’re saying if it’s hey we want you to be a six-man or we don’t want you to think of yourself as the number two option anymore think about Kyle corver late in his career you know what I mean if you’re Klay Thompson you’re thinking heck no well I look they already they already went through this to a degree they already convinced him to come off the bench once I think there’s a way to do it my sense is they’re not doing it the way that they need to do it and and I think that they’re not doing it the way they need to do it because I don’t think they want to do it the way that they need to do it like we’re getting real damn close to compiling a lot of information that suggests the Warriors would kind of like without making it look this way they would kind of like Klay Thompson to maybe go play somewhere else and there’s his idea you know correct of course yeah correct yeah cuz then they can hey you know we already said on the record that yeah we want Klay Thompson who wouldn’t want Klay Thompson on their team right we want Klay to stay and then you know behind the scenes you’re like offer clay about 14 million a year or don’t offer him anything right just tell them that we’re not ready to make the offer we’re going to make an offer we’re not ready to make the offer yet and what is clay here well clay here is you’re not you’re not priority one so you know what I mean you you go to like you just brought up this workplace as an example um and it’s true for any workplace you go to your boss and you say hey uh contract time coming up you know could we could we maybe have a meeting and the boss is like I mean not yet well but but but it’s up it’s up in two months well we got time month later how about now yeah yeah back we got a bunch of stuff going on there a lot of meetings so you know I got put together this PowerPoint at a certain point like no money has been discussed or anything but you’re like wow like they don’t they don’t care and I I do wonder and again I’m not saying that the the Warriors are are classy they’re they’re not going to be disrespectful to a living Warriors Legend they’re not going to do that but they are in this really really prickly spot with regard to how they proceed with him because they want to treat him like Klay Thompson but at the same time it it is starting to feel to me like the underbelly of the Warriors is like this they’re like we kind of know that we need to go in a different direction if we want to be good this year but we can’t say that out loud and we certainly can’t say that to him so we’re going to go through the process of acting like we want him back and and slowly but surely behind the scenes we’re going to move in a Direction that’s going to make the opposite happen that’s what I mean I mean check all this out here this is part of the Warriors plus minus podcast the athletic listen for Marcus Thompson’s part in this one his situation remains very unsettled behind the scenes like I mean I wrote about it last week it’s going to I don’t think it looks good for him coming back I think he’s going to get a bunch of money thrown at him and I know it’s crazym deal I know oh no no man teams are out here desperate they need we watched four teams in the playoffs could not score they just could not score and here’s a higher gun I think somebody’s going to offer him a bunch of money then Clay’s got to decide do I take the money or do I and what that number is is it going to are they offering him 30 I think he can get it I think he can get it um I tell you what you you know you you listen to that and Marcus brings up a really good point that that’s totally outside of the Warriors offices and I agree with him not that my ear is to the ground to any level that that that his is but like if you think about I mean even take the way Stephen A Smith talks about him potentially being to the Knicks like there are teams that are in this different spot where they’re like clay clay could be clay could be our missing piece and so I think that the offer that Klay Thompson or offers that Klay Thompson is going to get I I I think they’re going to be significant yeah I agree with you and we’ve already looked at the teams that are competitive who do have a lot of cap room and those are a couple of them Orlando’s one New York is another and you certainly have you know other ones that are out there OKC is a team that could use a little bit more shooting so it all comes down in a number of different ways to Klay Thompson’s going to have suitors and if you’re the Golden State Warriors yeah you want Klay Thompson but but you do know that Klay Thompson probably won’t get the same kind of offer with the Warriors that he’ll get elsewhere and you mentioned it about priorities right now the Warriors number one priority is to get better and priority number one is to find a way to get a big boy Jimmy Butler just flew to San Jose and we’re all a buzz with what possibly that could mean wow he’s definitely coming even though it’s completely illegal even though it’s complete nonsense but our mind right now is in a place where we’re waiting for the Warriors to make a big swing a big move and Klay Thompson resigning is not that I mean what could Jimmy be doing in San Jose what the hell’s going on in San Jose I checked the Quakes are on the road so okay so it’s not that yeah um W that’s a great question thank you yeah why is Jimmy flying to San Jose I mean if if you know maybe has family there flying to chase Center you you I mean if you’re going to chase Center you’d you’d fly to SFO right and the other thing is he flew from vanise right which I think indicates that it’s a private plane because I don’t I don’t think that there’s a vanise airport is there like Well there must be well of course there is meaning right you’re saying commercial airport there’s Burbank there’s Long Beach there’s uh LAX of course Ontario I think van is like one of those smaller airports vanise airport there it’s a public airport in the van neighborhood of the city of Los Angeles all right what airlines fly out of Van eyes I don’t know about van eyes airport um there a one of two or yeah anyway whatever yeah yeah just felt like it might have been a planes probably smaller planes you know what I mean like I went to school at cowp like there there’s yeah there’s airports in San Louis abiso and Santa Barbara you can fly there oh yeah my sun flies out of Santa Barbara every time he comes home from college um he doesn’t drive he flies exactly flies out of Santa Barbara but I didn’t know van was an airport like we have many here in in the Bay Area these smaller airports like conquer and nevado has an airport NOS field and Livermore and Hayward paloalto there’s one on the peninsula I think in uh San mate or Belmont I think there’s all these little airports out there I’ve landed in almost all of them van eyes to San Jose by the way is like a I mean it’s like 40 minutes in the air yeah like be if that if that that that’s a super quick flight um anyway um we’re off on a tangent with Klay Thompson is going to be if he signs with the Warriors again that is more of like a July 7th or a July 8th maneuver free agency starts July 1 and that’s when Klay Thompson’s going to get offers from other teams look if he’s somebody else’s first priority then I would imagine he’s going to go to a different team The Warriors right now following the script of how you move on from a legend how you move on from a fan favorite they’re following the script you don’t give them a thank you contract for five years and watch him deteriorate Giants no you look what what what have they done with this guy all year long all year long okay let you offer a contract at the beginning of the year which by the way can we go down that hole for a second we don’t know that we’re acting like we know that what did they offered him a contract it was a Shams comment on a FanDuel show same guy that said JJ reck was about to be the head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers and maybe he will be everybody’s moved on to Dan Hurley because wge bombed Shams who knows nothing has happened yet but just because sham said I heard the Warriors did two years and 48 mil I mean Steve cerr has come on this show and been like Shams I so I don’t know that he was offered two years and 48 million and said no but the Warriors offered him uh if they offered him something it was on the shorter term and it was for a major major downgrade in terms of money okay so you start there then you then you float it out publicly I’ll let everybody know that we offered him a contract and he said no all right now we get into the season tell you what why move him to the bench let’s move him to the bench signaling to everybody that we know that he’s not the player that he used to be as things continue to roll you get to the end of the year you have a very woeful finish and then at every turn terms of press conferences and microphones you talk about how badly you want Klay Thompson to return then again you have an exit interview that clearly has him agitated okay so I don’t know what was said in that exit interview more on that in just a second because some of these guys do but watch what’s going on here’s the key point I’m trying to make the Warriors are publicly saying we want clay what are all the beat writers saying CU because they’re the ones that are getting the stuff that’s behind the scenes so if you’re going to say out loud we want clay we’ve got to have Clay back and every one of the beat writers is like yeah it doesn’t look good where do you think they’re getting it where do you think you’re getting it the Warriors are letting the beat writers say publicly what they actually think they won’t say what they actually think because they can’t they can’t say that out loud you can’t dis Legend like that and it does you no good either really to go say we’re moving on from Klay Thompson we want to thank him for his participation but you said that you said publicly that we want to keep him yeah they do want to keep him do they for sure for sure for the vet men I mean it all comes down to price do they want Klay Thompson on the team absolutely do they want to uh match whatever Clay is offered by another team no chance the Warriors number one priority in the off season is what get better their job is to get better bringing back Klay Thompson bringing everybody back and I don’t think that Chris Paul would be among them but even if you brought Chris Paul back forget the salary if you just brought back the exact same team the exact same basketball players that you had last year are you any better I would argue you’re a little bit worse because the majority of these guys well all of them are a year older and some of the guys like kaminga should be a little bit better next year the younger players should all be ticking up Chris Paul at 39 Dario shich I mean all these guys would come back in this hypothetical so if you brought everyone back you’re not achieving your goal correct of getting better well I like I’m going to I’m going to largely agree with you but I think there’s a finer point to the idea of do they want him back and it’s just price price obviously affects everything you it yeah yeah I think that I think that’s what the Warriors are completely focused on so I’ll agree with you they want Clay on their team but only on their terms they want Clay on their team to do what they want him to do and I I would gather it probably doesn’t match what he wants to do and it definitely doesn’t match what other teams are going to offer him to do which is why they’re going to be willing to spend so much more money because they’re going to ask him to come in and have a much more substantial role right so add all those things together and it’s almost like I mean you can just fly into the other direction completely why on Earth would clay stay if there are other places that are like so more money uh bigger role and uh and first priority who would who wouldn’t sign that well you you probably would unless you were so married to the idea of legacy and finishing where you started that’s important but if it comes down to role and money and respect like we talked about because if Klay Thompson is in that spot where the team is privately saying to him you know Clay we see you we see you more as a bench player and you’re going to have to take a uh pretty Monster pay cut and stay but don’t worry about the embarrassment that you may feel about coming Off the Bench for the Golden State Warriors then it becomes a no-brainer look I know we also all go under the the the the premise that when clay retires he’s just going to be gone forever we’re never going to see him again um I don’t even know exactly if that’s true or not but nothing nothing changes his his post career life is still a warrior Legend and he will still completely be welcomed back to represent the Warriors in any way shape or form if he does go complete his career with Orlando or Philadelphia or New York I don’t I I don’t think like I’m a big believer that there’s a financial there’s a financial gain to a player to be a lifetime player that never changes jerseys you know what I mean a buster posy suddenly gets to be part of ownership groups or whatever like that I think that there’s a piece to that but look around at some of the legends that we just adore in this city who put on other uniforms at the end of their career yeah many Jerry Rice right Jerry Rice is Ronnie lot Joe Montana pretty much all the Niners Steve Young had put on other jerseys prior to even coming here all of them like that’s kind of been the Niners thing it’s an NFL thing too yeah but uh like I mean we could go we we could go beyond that um and and I just think that uh that’s that’s the reality for for most players yeah most pro athletes for sure and even and I was thinking about this the other day as Brandon Crawford hit his first home run good example as a St Louis Cardinals and good for you Brandon you’re you’re still out there playing I thought that his career was over and he’s not playing a ton but he did Homer for the Cardinals and I saw him trotting around the bases with that long greasy looking mullet and I thought good for him he’s still playing you still want to play you can play but I don’t think that his the memories of giants fans of Brandon Crawford will not be tarnished based on his uh not even a little bit one season not even a little bit and I think it’s more of the it’s more of the exception as opposed to the rule to find players who are one team their whole career so you’re right Klay Thompson will not be smeared by the fact that he is an Orlando Magic for a couple of years or a New York Nick or whatever uh Brandon Crawford has 147 career home runs uh 146 of them with the Giants K with the Giants perfect that makes sense he’s hit 162 this year in 13 games yeah 37 at bats he’s got six hits double in a homer sarian yeah you want to know what’s just completely awful I would die for the Giants down Brandon Crawford right now just for these just for these two weeks uh but anyway we wanted to play that uh that other comment from the Warriors plus minus pod Tim kakami Anthony Slater and Marcus Thompson and this was an interesting conversation that developed with regard to Clay’s emotions and some things that upset him um not just from the front office but from a very high-profile teammate as well it’s fair if clay he was pissed he was pissed at him at the end of there’s no question he was pissed at them at the end of the season and and and by the way not very happy with upper Management’s dealing with his extension talk the thing or non dealing I should say the whole thing and I think he takes he took offense when Draymond not at Draymond but that Draymond said hey look they signed him to fouryear $180 million deal when he would tour his ACL and you know Kay didn’t love that and he like hey what were they going do what were they going to do imagine they did that was probably his most like he had a very interesting exit interview for several reasons but that was probably the answer that was most like revealing he had back listen to it if they laugh like can you oh yeah what you I just uh you know tore my ACL trying to win my you know fourth title yes and he’s right it just was a very interesting moment that draymond’s the one who brought up no one said hey Draymond the fact that they gave clay all this money after he Tory seale no like Draymond brought it up himself so um interesting stuff again I I I’ve heard it’s not as pissy right now doesn’t mean they’re going to do a deal I just think they’ve had some had time yeah yeah it’s just he was pissed clay was pissed okay so like I I I sort of love hearing that because for me it kind of helps explain uh a lot about the way things have gone over the last year plus with Klay Thompson he he he has looked annoyed he he has snapped at people where you’re like why you just snapping him Tim Cami didn’t even ask you about yourself and you you started freaking out but you going to bench me yeah I’m like he writes for the athletic he’s not going to bench you I don’t think he has a article you why so like he’s been edgy and now now we understand a little bit more and uh yeah it all adds into a bucket uh where you know the the relationship between the team and Klay Thompson if Tim’s going to be like it’s not that pissy right now well that’s great he didn’t say it was good he just said there’s not like vinegar in it that that there was maybe 3 months ago but add all of this together not a great relationship um the certainly cash strapped and uh and by the way they’d like the role to be severely lessened oh and the rest of the league still is in complete love with uh with Klay Thompson and that three-point shot add it all together and I know people don’t want to come out and say it firmly and boy I really hope I’m wrong and could be wrong but you start adding these Clues together I’m like dude in this moment I don’t see how he ends up on this team again next year what’s this what’s the path what’s the scenario based on all of this information that leads him back to the team don’t see it and especially if you take Tim kokami at his rder I don’t know if it was Anthony Slater or Marcus Thompson but one of them was mentioning how there there’s going to be offers out there for Klay Thompson I think Marcus mentioned it because four the eight teams that were still alive late in the postseason they couldn’t shoot and they couldn’t score and here you have a guy who is still one of the best Shooters in the game and a guy who in the right system and in the right role just go out there and be a sniper for a team and he could be that for the Golden State Warriors and he has been for so many years but you take some of these younger teams that are dying for that veteran presence that Championship pedigree which is something that he would bring that you know obviously we take it for granted a little bit here because you have Steph and Draymond who also have that but if you take a young team like Orlando a team without that experience and you add in a real three-point shooting threat and a guy who’s got four championships that’s invaluable and teams will pay for that yeah
Willard and Dibs continue to dive into the Klay Thompson situation and react to what Anthony Slater, Tim Kawakami, and Marcus Thompson said on the latest edition of the Warriors +/- podcast about Klay and the Warriors. Are we sure that the Warriors still want Klay back no matter what this offseason?
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