Former Findlay star’s NBA emergence not surprising
Cavaliers big man began embracing role while at Findlay Prep
The Cleveland Cavaliers won three playoff series to reach the NBA Finals, and with each progression more and more people are getting to know the guy star LeBron James said management should never allow to leave the team.
“This guy is 24 years old, he’s played in 340-plus straight games, and he’s gotten better every single season,” James told reporters May 26. “It’s almost like, ‘What more can you ask out of a guy?’”
That guy is Findlay Prep product Tristan Thompson, and perhaps no Cavalier has benefited from James’ homecoming more than the former Pilot. Thompson can thank James and the duo’s shared agent, Rich Paul, for the boost, but Thompson helped put himself in the position for an NBA title and a big payday by playing with a tenacity and relentlessness that has endeared him to the “best player in the world.”
Thompson’s former coaches say the NBA Finals, which start tonight at Golden State, might be a bigger stage, but he got there by playing the same way he did to help Findlay Prep win its first two national titles.
“He’s always been a guy that’s embraced his role,” said former Findlay Prep coach Mike Peck. “(In Cleveland) he’s one that was smart enough to know and look around, the last thing we need is a guy who can score. We need guys who are going to do everything else.”
In this case, everything else has meant things such as grabbing offensive rebounds, setting hard screens and constantly sprinting to both start and prevent fast breaks.
As the fourth overall pick in 2011 out of Texas, Thompson, a 6-foot-8 forward who becomes a restricted free agent this summer, was a solid player on a few bad Cleveland rosters. James’ return moved Thompson from the starting lineup to the bench for most of the year, but for a guy who came off Findlay Prep’s
bench in 2009, that hardly seemed like a sacrifice as long as wins followed.
“LeBron has such an elite understanding of basketball,” said former Findlay Prep coach Todd Simon. “If you play hard, don’t necessarily need the ball but know how to get to spots where you can be successful, he’ll use you.”
Peck, who coaches the Las Vegas Prospects’ Under-17 team, was in his second year leading the Pilots with Simon, currently on UNLV’s staff, as his top assistant when Thompson joined the program during the 2008-09 season. One of the top players in his class, Thompson had a falling out with St. Benedict’s (New Jersey) coach Dan Hurley and was kicked off the team.
Thompson’s parents are from Jamaica and raised him in Canada, where he hit growth spurts and decided that to become better, he needed to play against better competition in the United States. Peck already had Canada native Cory Joseph on the roster when Thompson was looking for a new destination, so when Joseph vouched that his friend wouldn’t be a troublemaker, the coaches brought him in.
Two national titles later, both Joseph and Thompson were first-round draft picks, and now a year after Joseph won a title with the San Antonio Spurs, Thompson is four victories away from his own. But unlike Joseph, who averaged about five minutes per game during the Spurs’ title run, Thompson is having a huge impact as one of the playoffs’ breakout stars.
With a slightly reduced role in the regular season, Thompson set a career high in field-goal percentage (54.7) while continuing to make the hustle plays that he’s been known for since high school.
“Tristan’s relentlessness, his pursuit of the ball, his ability to seek contact; he understands the game of basketball,” Simon said. “Those are all things that he knew back then.”
That would have been fine in the playoffs, too, but when Kevin Love suffered a season-ending shoulder injury the Cavs needed Thompson to take on more responsibility. He has responded by shooting 59.3 percent with 9.4 points and 9.9 rebounds per game while playing nearly eight minutes per game more than in the regular season.
The Cavaliers are underdogs. Whatever hap- pens in the series, Thompson’s play to this point has ensured a large contract coming his way this summer, and he has earned it in large part by honing the skills he already had in high school.
“He was a great teammate then and he was a great winner then,” Simon said. “He’s on a team to cultivate good chemistry and winning basketball.”