FIRST TAKE | Stephen A. believes Klay Thompson is the missing piece to a Dallas Mavericks title run

FIRST TAKE | Stephen A. believes Klay Thompson is the missing piece to a Dallas Mavericks title run

uh it appears clay and his Camp made one final attempt to stay in the bay but Golden State wasn’t having it ESPN Ramona shelburn Kendra Andrews reporting Thompson’s Camp made one final offer to the Golden State Warriors for two years roughly 20 million per season before he pursued other offers in free agency the team did not accept it clay eventually accepted the Mavericks threeyear 50 million deal and of course despite signing clay four-time Champion one of the best Shooters in League history the Mavs odds of winning the NBA Championship next season did not increase though on ESPN bet remaining the same as they were before they acquired Thompson at 11 to1 uh CC you think the addition of clay um let’s say have a Major Impact yeah on the Dallas Mavericks uh winning it all now absolutely absolutely I I think it will and I’m I’m shocked that those numbers stayed the same and those numbers may have stayed the same because because everybody else in the west is getting better but when we look back at the NBA Finals what did we see we saw a team that loved to shoot the three all season long Mavericks were second in the league and three-pointers attempted this year behind who well the Boston Celtics and the problem was they were 13th when it came to actually making the shots and the Celtics defensively did a great job on the perimeter in the finals but the Mavericks just were not knocking down Chucks and those those numbers numbers were entirely too low in the low 30s to have a chance I think even high 20s at one point to have a chance to win those games what’s Klay Thompson going to do he’s going to come in and at the very worst he’s going to shoot 38 39 40% from three they can use him in the perfect way with Luca and with Kyrie and he could take some of the pressure off them as well Klay Thompson makes a team that just got to the finals even better are they immediately definitively a championship favorite obviously not but at 11 to1 I could see putting down a couple of bucks on that because that does not feel like a an an accurate representation of what the Maverick’s championship chances are what do you think cor I I mean I agree the I was surprised to see that the odds didn’t change and when you talk about the shooters that Lucas had around him throughout his career he’s never played with somebody like Klay Thompson who shot 40% from three in eight different seasons throughout his long NBA career the upgrade is Major like I have a hard time thinking about Klay Thompson though at 34 years old being part of something that like has that word huge associated with it but it should drastically change the odds because he’s going to be part now of if you want to call it a big three to where his role is different from what it was I mean the off ball movement and what he can do what he did in Golden State vastly different styles between the Warriors and the Dallas Mavericks was Mavericks but that’s an upgrade there the corner three I mean Dallas is a team that attempted the most Corner threes last season throughout the regular season and they only hit 36% of them that’s one of the worst marks in the NBA Klay Thompson on his own was right around 42% so the movement element there for me in what this does for the offense Chris you mentioned I mean this takes the pressure off of Kyrie and Luca dones who was doing that in the in the five game series against the Boston Celtics not many players and on top of that I mean I think with Marshall with Grimes now with Klay Thompson going into a starters role where he doesn’t have to take a back seat to anybody the way that it was Prime to play out for him had he resigned with the Golden State Warriors the Mavericks coming out of the West I think you probably end up putting Oklahoma City you put the Denver Nuggets you put the Minnesota Timberwolves but right there very firmly in the mix is the Dallas Mavericks to get back to the place where they were last season you know it’s interesting Wendy because Klay Thompson not only is going to get shots he’s get a lot of open shots because of the kick when Luca and those guys got into the middle of the lane they got doubled those guys had wide open shots and still couldn’t knock them down and Wendy last time I checked the Dallas Mavericks went through Minnesota went through OKC the two teams everyone’s been talking about probably the top teams in the west don’t you think the addition of Klay Thompson means that these guys are right back in the NBA finals next season I mean I wouldn’t I wouldn’t guarantee him back in the finals but but this fit is just tremendous because the Mavericks are a high volume three-point shooting team they want to shoot a lot of Threes clay fit they don’t have great three-point Shooters clay fits into that honestly if he stays healthy he’s going to take 600 threes I know how many of them are going to be open I mean because he puts up huge volume and they want that it’s not like they have to bend their offense that’s why this fit made so much sense there was an emotional fit with the Lakers the the basketball fit with the Mavericks is perfect um there’s only one thing I’m going to say about this um so there’s two reasons two core reasons really why Clay is not a warrior anymore one is obviously the contract issue where he and the Warriors run different pages and that shouldn’t be ignored that’s a primary issue the second thing is last year Clay’s role collapsed a little bit they took him out of the starting lineup for a while they stopped playing at the end of games and the reason they did that was because he struggled defensively on some of those perimeter players and it was a better option at times to have Brandon pky out there defensively so the thing that poured Rocket Fuel onto the Mavericks last year after the All-Star break was putting Derrick Jones June Derrik Jones Jr in there as they’re starting small forward defensively and letting him run around the perimeter their their defense took off as soon as that move happened it wasn’t just Jones but he was a turnkey that they’ really had their defense clicking so essentially what’s happened here is they’ve replaced Jones with Klay Thompson from a three-point and an offensive standpoint that’s a spectacular upgrade and everybody’s excited about it but they are probably going to play a pay a price defensively and that should not be overlooked and there could be a time this upcoming season when Jason kid has to make a decision about whether it’s Clay the same situation that that Steve Kerr was in this year does Klay Thompson fit defens ly under certain circumstances at the end of games and the answer May overwhelmingly be yes because of the damage he can do on the offensive end but there is a defensive downgrade that they’ve made here swapping out Jones for Thompson and I think that has to be baked in to looking at the Mavericks chances as well I mean to your point Wendy at that you’re looking at the Mavericks and we’re killing them all season long for not being a good defensive team and then what happened in the second half after the trade deadline they all of a sudden they shot way up were playing much much better defensively there’s no question that Clay is not the same player defensively that he used to be because even if he had off nights he knew you were getting very good defense I’m interested to see that too and I’m with you I think he’s most of the time back down there but uh back out there at the end of games but the Mavericks can’t get away from that that that has to be a big factor in realizing how they got to the finals this pastas you have to lean more on lively Gafford obviously protect R good defens play PJ Washington as well you’re going have lean on and listen Kyrie Irving showed in the finals I can play defense and he did it on both ends of the Court woring down a little bit absolutely you know that is but by the way Wendy I got to get to you on this one because where didn’t do the Warriors where do they go from here now you know Steph Curry said look I still want to win and he’s playing at a very high level Clay is gone now where does Golden State go now the Warriors had a very functional off season I know that it’s you lose a guy who you’re going to build a statue to and raise his number under acrimonious circumstances no one feels good about that I promise you but if you look at what they’ve done you know when you lose Klay Thompson you lose a great high volume three-point shooter well they are trying to acquire buddy heeld buddy heeld is not Klay Thompson but if they execute that they will have replaced a big chunk of those three-point shooting they went out and signed DeAnthony Melton who is a frankly at this point in his career a better perimeter Defender than Klay Thompson is now he had injuries all last year and they don’t have the healed acquisition done so let’s not assume everything but those two Acquisitions in theory should cover up what you’re losing for clay they went out and added Kyle Anderson who is a sort of a stop Gap guy who plays a bunch of different positions you’re you’re wagering on Brandon psky and Jonathan kuminga getting better which I think is a fair bet and they’re still holding four tradable first round picks and some expiring salary that they could potentially use in a bigger deal later now they’ve sniffed around Lowry Markin and that would be a kind of a home run acquisition I don’t know if they’re going to be able to pull it off right now but if it’s not marking in in July it could be another player in December or January with that stuff so I’m not going to sit here and tell you the Warriors are back and you better make plans for another uh summer in San Francisco but I do think the Warriors have had a a a improving off season and are still working and still have options at their fingertips yeah I I think if they can get marketing all of a sudden they become relevant again in the west which is tough but again it seems like we’ve been saying this for the past couple of years they’re going to be relying on Moody and kaminga to really for [Music] doing fore [Music] foreign spee fore fore spe speech foreign [Music] speech for speeech speech foreign spee foreign Jo fore foreign too foreign spee fore foreign for spee fore speech speech spee for foreign foreign speech spech speee spee foree fore [Music]

FIRST TAKE | Stephen A. believes Klay Thompson is the missing piece to a Dallas Mavericks title run