Klay Thompson is more than a player, he’s a pivotal member of the best team of the last 10 years – the Golden State Warriors.
The news of Klay Thompson’s injury was heartbreaking, not just for the Golden State Warriors and their fans, but for the entire NBA. While Klay is an incredible player and one of the best shooters in NBA history, he also represents a movement.
Team sports teach us that you need to do things the right way in order to have success: work hard, sacrifice, and put the team first. You see that played out in all the major sports but not to the same extent in the NBA. It is the only sport where the individual star player truly is the franchise. But that narrative started to change thanks to the Warriors.
Golden State proved that you don’t need to tank for several seasons in order to build a winner like the “Trust the Process” Philadelphia 76ers did, an approach that is detrimental to the popularity of the sport. The Warriors also proved that you don’t need to have the best player in the league, LeBron James, on your team in order to win a championship.
The Warriors showed that you could win playing team basketball with smart skilled players that weren’t uber-athletic. There isn’t a kid that watched the Warriors play that said I can’t learn to shoot as good as Klay or Steph. The Warriors won championships playing the “beautiful game”. They had truly great players buy into the team concept, share the ball, and sacrifice personal accolades in exchange for team success. No other player exemplified the Golden State culture more than Klay. He could have been a much bigger star if he played on another team.
Every fan needs a second team
Everyone that follows the NBA knows that there are only 2-3 teams a season that have a realistic chance to win a championship. For fans of the other 27 teams, especially the really bad ones you need to find another team to follow in order to stay engaged with the sport all the way through the Finals. Fans of other teams need to adopt a second team or find what I call a “cheat team”.
For the majority of NBA fans that are in that conundrum, there were only two paths; root for LeBron James or the team standing in his way. For me and many of my friends, we chose the latter, root for the Golden State Warriors.
Foiling the King’s plans
When LeBron James was planning his exodus from the Miami Heat in the summer of 2014 he thought he had built another super team in Cleveland. It was going to be perfect, he replaced an aging Dwyane Wade with a young Kyrie Irving, and Chris Bosh with Kevin Love. Plus his national appeal would increase by returning home. In his mind, the Cavs would become America’s team. It was perfect, there was no other team set up to challenge him. The team that just beat him, the San Antonio Spurs, were getting old while his teammates just got younger.
But for as forward-thinking and calculating as LeBron James is, neither he or the rest of the NBA saw the Warriors coming. Golden State obviated all the teams in their path thanks to the growth of their young core and the new offensive system installed by rookie head coach Steve Kerr.
They went on to win 3 championships in LeBron’s 4 years in Cleveland. They would have shut out LeBron completely if it wasn’t for injuries and the uncharacteristic act by the NBA of suspending a player during the Finals.
Like all great runs they have to come to an end. The grind of playing 100+ games a season and the eventual aging of core players will wear a team down.
LeBron James’s final act
After being humbled in Cleveland, LeBron James took his talents to Los Angeles in a move that was considered part personal, part business and part basketball. He got to work making chess moves in order to build his 3rd new super team. While he was able to pry Anthony Davis, away from New Orleans, he wasn’t able to get that 3rd star. But fortunate for him and the NBA, Kevin Durant decided he wanted to leave Golden State.
Even after Durant’s departure and Klay’s torn ACL, it looked like the Warriors were going to come roaring back this season. But then the Klay tore his Achilles tendon. The outlook for this season and the near future got a lot dimmer in a hurry.
After LeBron took advantage of a lost season for the Warriors to secure his 4th championship it looks like he is on track to win another championship.
Golden State – America’s team
But if there ever was a franchise that could reload and rise back to the top, it’s the Warriors. They have one of the best GMs in the game, Bob Myers, and two of the best owners, Joe Lacob and Peter Gruber. They brought the tech mindset to basketball, always innovating and thinking outside the box. They made the Bay Area one of the few destination markets in the NBA, now there are two glamour markets on the West Coast.
NBA fans want and need to see important games being played at the glamorous Chase Center in downtown San Francisco, especially against the Lakers. We need someone to play David to LeBron and the Lakers’ Goliath. All the non-Laker/LeBron fans want to see Andrew Wiggins, James Wiseman, and Kelly Oubre Jr. step up and embrace the Warriors’ culture. Only the team that showed you can dominate playing the right way can stand in their way.