Shooter ranks with elite on offense — and defense
The Chronicle is reviewing the season of each Warriors player after the team’s championship run.
In an August Yahoo Sports article about Kevin Durant signing with Golden State, Klay Thompson said: “I’m not sacrificing (expletive), because my game isn’t changing.” Those nine words rippled through social media and left some questioning his motives.
The only adjustment Thompson made playing alongside Durant was forgoing attempts he shouldn’t take, anyway. He established career highs with 17.6 shots and 22.3 points per game. In doing so, he shot 46.8 percent from the field and 41.4 percent from three-point range.
A master at moving without the ball, he led the league with 11.5 points per game on catchand-shoot opportunities. Thompson needed only 88.4 seconds of possession, 52 touches, 33 shots and 11 dribbles to score 60 points in 29 minutes in a Dec. 5 win over Indiana. Per the Elias Sports Bureau, Thompson was the first player since the shot clock was introduced in 1954 to score 60 points in fewer than 30 minutes.
In the playoffs, he toiled through perhaps the most extended shooting slump of his career. Thompson averaged only 15 points in the postseason on 39.7 percent shooting.
Still, he was elite defensively. In the West semifinals, while taking turns on Utah’s Gordon Hayward and Joe Johnson, Thompson was relentless, fighting through screens and putting hands on them along the arc. In the Warriors’ Western Conference finals sweep of San Antonio, he helped hold Patty Mills to 7.8 points on 24.3 percent shooting in 30.3 minutes per game. Offseason outlook: Thompson is signed through 2018-19, but isn’t immune from offseason chatter. Before free agency began, he shot down talk of eventually teaming up with Paul George on the Lakers.
Thompson has long said that he would rather stick with Golden State than become the No. 1 option on a lesser team. Even though he might be the third- or fourth-biggest name on his own team, he appreciates being part of a group that could go down as one of the best clubs in NBA history.