How Good Was PRIME Klay Thompson?

How Good Was PRIME Klay Thompson?

When Klay Thompson gets hot he becomes the most devastating weapon in NBA history he holds the NBA record for the most threes in a game and most points in a quarter 37 in a quarter and he’s the only player ever who scored 60 points in less than 30 minutes but Thompson isn’t

Just a one-dimensional heat check shooter he used to be a premier perimeter Defender and Draymond Green called him the toughest player he ever played with however at the beginning of the 2024 season Clay is sadly playing the worst basketball of his career which brings up a question how good was Prime

Klay Thompson actually his story started by hitting the genetic Lottery his mom Julie was a track and field and volleyball star in college and his father Michael was the first overall pick in the 1978 NBA draft after dominating in high school together with his teammate Kevin Love Clay had offers

From major schools such as Michigan and Notre Dame however he wasn’t sold on them because they didn’t guarantee him a starting spot so clay visited vised other schools including Washington state where he showed up to their gym in socks and sandals after practice finished clay took the ball and started shooting from

NBA range and left everybody with their jaws dropped to the floor in sandals with no warmup whatsoever clay hit 26 threes in a row and 48 out of 50 in total his decision to join Washington State surprised many but it proved to be a great one as a freshman clay

Immediately became a starter and led the pack 10 in 3o perent but he didn’t rest on his Laurels he never partied and was always in the gym shooting endlessly and it paid off in his sophomore and Junior Seasons Thompson made pack 10 first team and led the division in scoring breaking

Several shooting records in the process after which he declared for the Stacked 2011 NBA draft during his pre-draft interview with the Warriors they asked Thompson what he did for fun I like to shoot clay said when they explained that they wanted to know what kind of activities he did off the floor Thompson

Shrugged and said I like to shoot and just like that with the 11th pick in the 2011 NBA draft the Golden State Warriors select Klay Thompson from Washington State University Thompson who grew up in Southern California as a Los Angeles Lakers fan wasn’t exactly thrilled to join the Warriors because the franchise

Had just one playoff appearance over its last 18 Seasons but when the season started clay quickly gained the trust of coach Mark Jackson thanks to his outside shooting and willingness to defend anybody back then clay was super quiet just minded his own business and didn’t even speak to Steph Curry I don’t think

Me and Steph said a word to each other the first year to be honest and Clay finished his rookie year with 12.5 points per game 41% shooting from three and made the all rookie first team after the season was over Thompson spent the whole summer in the gym a month of which

Was just practicing defense and in that same 2012 offseason Golden State drafted Harrison Barnes and Draymond Green despite the Youth of the team and the undefined roles of their key players the Warriors improved tremend tremendously winning 47 games and making the playoffs Steph was finally healthy bogot was

Patrolling in the middle and Clay was the third leading scorer on the team behind Curry and David Lee Thompson averaged 16 points and made over 200 threes in a season with over 40% accuracy a feat he would accomplish seven more times in his career only 41 players in NBA history have done this

And only Curry achieved this feat more times than clay in January 2013 after Thompson scored a season High 32 points against the Cavaliers Warriors coach Mark Jackson said that clay and Steph were the best shooting duo in NBA history I they are the greatest shooting back court has ever played this game

Many people laughed at Jackson for saying that after approximately 50 games they played together but clay and Steph combined for 483 three-pointers by the end of the season which was the most ever by an NBA Duo at that time in their first NBA playoffs the Splash Brothers

Led the Warriors past the nuggets and Clay’s shooting efficiency even improved in the playoffs proving that the bright lights don’t phase him at all in game two of the second round against the Spurs Klay scored a career-high 34 points hitting eight out of nine three-point attempts but the Spurs would

Go on to win the title that year however in 2014 clay and the Warriors continued to improve Thompson was averaging 18 points per game with now traditionally efficient shooting from deep and Stellar perimeter defense thanks to Clay bogot more minutes from Draymond and the addition of Andre Iguodala golden state

Had the fourth best defense in the league and they finished the season with 51 wins which was their best result since 1992 and the Run TMC era however the first round was a bitter pill to swallow as they lost to the Clippers in seven games after which Mark Jackson got

Fired this was a difficult decision but we believe he’s got a bright future and we felt it was the time to make a change for the 2015 season Golden State hired Steve cerr as their head coach which proved to be one of the best coaching decisions of this Millennium like

Jackson Kerr was well aware Ware of what kind of snipers he had in the back court but he wanted to make them even deadlier the Warriors started pushing the tempo shooting more threes and their style of play earned a nickname for the modern era of basketball pace and space Kur

Motion offense with lots of screening and cutting left the opponents choosing between two death sentences whether they wanted to give up a wide open dunk or leave one of the Splash Brothers open for three the addition of Shawn Livingston and inserting Green in the starting lineup gave the Warriors two

More Playmakers and the small ball lineup with Draymond at Center proved to be an unsolvable mystery for every NBA defense Golden State won a franchise record 67 games with the number one defense in the NBA and the second best offense their 10.2 net rating was the seventh best in league history clay

Averaged over 20 points per game for the first time in his career shooting close to 50 40 90 for the season and making his first All-Star game then on January 23rd 2015 Thompson entered a zone that not not many players have experienced not only in basketball but in sports in

General in a 126 to 101 win over the Sacramento Kings clay scored a career-high 52 points with 11 three-pointers in the third quarter of that game he scored an NBA record 37 points in a single quarter going 13 for 13 from the field including nine three-pointers also a league record for

A single quarter it was the single biggest heat check in NBA history and resembled a video game more than real life clay and Steph would once again break their record for threes in a season with a combined 525 threes but still they somehow weren’t considered the title favorites a style of play so

Reliant on shooting had never won a title and many analysts believed that Golden State couldn’t win the title without a dominant post presence jumpers are like pretty girls they’re really goodlooking when they go going in but then when you realize that pretty girl is dumb you in for a long date until the

Warriors proved everybody wrong they breezed past their opponents in the west reaching the NBA finals and then winning the title against LeBron ending the franchise’s 40-year championship drought despite not having a great Series in the finals clay averaged 19 points per game in the 2015 playoffs and was the second

Best player on a title team but as always he just kept getting better in 2016 Thompson again improved his scoring average his efficiency and overall feel for the game while he was always great at running off screens and hitting shots he got much better at putting the ball

On the floor scoring off the dribble posting up and making plays for his teammates clay made another All-Star team and won the All-Star three-point shooting contest but that was just the icing on the cake of a nearly perfect regular season like clay all of the Warriors key players kept improving

Their individual game and because of the continuity and familiarity the Warriors had with each other they became an Unstoppable Force the 2016 Warriors broke the record for wins in a season set by the 1996 Chicago Bulls finishing the regular season with a 73 and9 record golden state had the best offensive

Rating in NBA history that season and they led the NBA in nearly all major statistical categories however chasing the record took its toll and the dubs came into the playoffs tired and when Steph Curry got injured in game two of the first round it smelled like trouble

He’s going to have two plus weeks of inactivity after only playing two halves of the first round series but clay stepped up and the Warriors to a 4 to1 Series victory over the Rockets next up were the Blazers who were looking to exploit Steph’s absence and once again

Clay put the team on his back averaging 31 points in the series with unreal 50509 shooting splits and leading the dubs to another 4-1 Victory thankfully Curry recovered for the Conference Finals but it didn’t matter Durant and Westbrook were playing out of their minds and after four games the best team

Ever was on the brink of elimination as the Thunder held a 3-1 series lead lead Golden State managed to win game five but in game six it looked like they were going down for much of the game they were down by double digits and it was largely because of clay that they

Managed to keep their head above water and then in the fourth Thompson entered another one of those mindboggling heat checks hitting five preposterously hard threes and dragging the Warriors to Victory with 41 points and 11 made threes in total the legend of game six clay was born and with momentum on their

Side The Warrior also won game seven and made the finals again their finals opponent was the same but this time Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving were healthy which made the Cavs much more dangerous but after four games once the dubs had a 3-1 lead it seemed like nothing could

Stop their nuclear offense clay who almost never talks trash actually never talks in general made a huge mistake and trash talked LeBron in his postgame presser people have feelings and people’s feelings get hurt even if they’re called a bad word I guess his feelings just got hurt little did he

Know he poked the wrong bear without the suspended Draymond Cleveland won game five on the road and then also game six at home and in game seven Kyrie made one of the biggest shots in finals history just like that the Warriors lost the title of what should have been a perfect

Season however that loss proved to be a blessing in disguise because it allowed the Warriors to add Kevin Durant if Golden State had won the title KD wouldn’t have joined the two-time Champs but because they lost they obviously L needed him and it was a perfect marriage

The 2017 warriors were the best team ever they won 67 games broke their own record for the best offensive rating ever and had the second best defense in the NBA with Draymond winning defensive player of the year on offense the Warriors had two League MVPs in their

Prime and Klay Thompson who was the best two-way guard in the NBA and they were simply unbeatable even though some pundits believe that Klay should take a backseat for Durant clay was having none of it and he actually posted the best scoring average of his career with 22.3

Points per game then the highlight of his season and arguably of his career happened on December 5th against the Pacers but ironically that day couldn’t have started any worse the Warriors had a morning shoot around and Clay was nowhere to be found he just never showed

Up it was all because he overslept he was probably embarrassed but in typical clay fashion he didn’t say a word before the game started and then he went absolutely Realistic clay scored 40 points in the first half and 60 points in total in just 29 minutes of action

Becoming the first player in NBA history to score 60 points in less than 30 minutes but what was even more fascinating is the fact that clay dribbled the ball just 14 times and had the ball in his hands for a total of 90 seconds in the entire game it was a

Catch and shoot Masterpiece and a perfect example of why Clay is such a perfect fit for the warrior because he didn’t need the ball to be effective however in the 2017 playoffs Thompson struggled with his shot and he had the worst offensive playoffs of his career but his defense against opposing guards

Like Damen Lillard Patty Mills and Kyrie Irving was impeccable and the Warriors had so much talent that it didn’t matter if one of their Allstars had an off night the Warriors dominated all of their opponents finishing the playoffs with a 16-1 record which was and still is the best postseason winning

Percentage in NBA history in 2018 both clay and his team stayed consistently great and even though the Rockets gave them a little scare in the Western Conference Finals the dubs won that Series in seven and then swept LeBron in the finals for their third title in four

Years at the beginning of the 2019 season Thompson shot the ball horribly over the first seven games shooting five for 36 from three and not once scoring 20 points and then he had another explosion against the Bulls clay hit an NBA record 143 to break Curry’s former

Mark of 13 Thompson scored 52 points in 27 minutes while making 14 for 24 of his threes and shooting 18 for 29 overall his 10 three-pointers in the first half tied the NBA record and the Warriors 17 threes in the first half set the NBA record for a half on January 21st Klay

Tied an NBA record by making his first 10 attempts from three-point range on his way to scoring 44 points in a 1311 win over the Lakers Thompson made his fifth consecutive All-Star game that year but maybe even more importantly he made the all defensive second team something that he should have been

Honored with more than once the website bball index gives players a matchup difficulty score from 1 to 100 with 100 signifying the toughest defensive assignments Thompson score never ranked below 92.6 meaning that he guarded the best opposing player pretty much every night his 6’7 220 lb frame and long Wings span

Bothers smaller players especially because clay was always willing to do the dirty work on defense over the years Thompson has also become Adept at understanding players tendencies and anticipating their next move and because he’s arguably the most conditioned player in the league with about 2.5 miles covered each game he’d never get

Tired which made it a long night for whoever he’s defending in his first eight seasons in the NBA clay was arguably the most durable player in the league missing just 25 games over that 8-year span but then after the Warriors made another finals Klay went down in

Game six with a torn ACL and because he was Clay a borderline crazy competitor he actually wanted to go back in the game and play with half a knee However unfortunately for clay he was forced to miss a whole season then just when he was getting ready to return he was

Forced to miss another one this time he tore his Achilles meaning that he suffered the two worst injuries in basketball in a span of 16 months it’s going to be a special moment when I step out there again after 941 days without NBA basketball clay finally returned to action on January 8th 2022

Clay Thom scoring 17 points against the Cavs and even though his mobility explosiveness and defensive output definitely weren’t up to par with his best clay was still a knockdown shooter he averaged 20 points per game in the regular season and then 19 in the playoffs helping the Warriors win

Another another NBA title and etching his name in history he’s like the Terminator the one who doesn’t say anything but computes his mission in his head the terminator’s mission is to kill John Connor Clay’s mission is to win games Warriors GM Bob Meyers when we’re talking about Clay’s Legacy we can

Safely say that he was one of the best catch and shoot players in history if not the best Thompson has led the NBA in catch and shoot Points each year since 2014 and he scored 1.25 points per possession when shooting threes off screens over over his entire career

Which is the equivalent of LeBron James shooting in transition few players in NBA history moved like clay without the ball and he can easily be compared to Ray Allen Reggie Miller and Rip Hamilton all of whom Thompson studied to get better at his craft but with more size lateral quickness and longer wingspan

Prime clay was a better Defender than all of them and even more importantly he was a more efficient shooter so Clay’s resume has eclipsed those of his mentors meaning that he’s the greatest off ball shooter ever and probably the second greatest shooter of all time and if you

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A look back at the incredible career of Klay Thompson.

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