Breakups are never easy, especially after the 13-season relationship between the Warriors and Klay Thompson that produced four NBA championships.
But as the cliche goes, all good things must come to an end, and in this case, that’s Thompson heading to Dallas to continue his basketball career with the Mavericks on a three-year, $50 million deal.
“I was probably a little disappointed at first,” Thompson said Tuesday during his introductory press conference with the Mavericks. “But then as time goes on, you have a lot of time to reflect and realize what you did; they can’t take that away from you as far as the championships … sometimes breakups are necessary to do what’s right. I’m not the first athlete in the NBA to go through this.”
Thompson had a seemingly messy breakup with the Warriors, with reports emerging about how “exhausting” he was behind the scenes after two leg injuries, one a torn ACL in 2019 and a torn Achilles he suffered in 2020 while recovering from his initial injury.
“I am very grateful for my time at Golden State,” Thompson said. “I just felt like moving on will just reenergize me [to do] something special with the rest of my career.”
Thompson joins a Mavericks squad that is fresh off an NBA Finals appearance, with Dallas losing to the Boston Celtics in five games.
As for the Warriors, the team seems to be in a tough spot following Thompson’s departure, failing to complete an opt-in and trade with the Clippers for Paul George.
George cryptically mentioned on his podcast that Thompson would have stayed with the Warriors if the trade had been completed, but the Clippers were unwilling to play ball with Golden State.
“That deal was close to being done from what I was being told on the situation, they was expressing just how much they wanted me there,” George said, “how I could have fit in perfectly with Draymond [Green], Steph [Curry]. Klay probably would’ve stayed. [Brandin] Podziemski, [Jonathan] Kuminga, [Andrew] Wiggins.”
George instead agreed to join the Philadelphia 76ers on a four-year max, $212 million max contract.
