Klay Thompson wears ‘Swagga Suit’ onesie
Klay Thompson was the butt of jokes earlier this year for allegedly being treat like a child by his parents. So now, of course, he’s going to dress like a child. But that’s no ordinary onesie; it’s a Swagga Suit! (Spoiler alert: It’s still a onesie.) Swagga Suits are created by a company of University of Washington students, no doubt all bros and broettes. They first blew up in popularity when former Huskies hoops star Jon Brockman sported a UW version of the onesie, er, excuse me, Swagga Suit last year. And now here’s Klay Thompson with the Cougars version. There also additional versions available for other Pac-12 schools in the northwest. Even with the super bro-y name, when it comes down to it, these are still onesies. Eh, at least they don’t have bunny ears. Anyway, the rise of this horrible fashion trend is best explained by Jason Lisk: Coincidence that this is occurring less than six months after the state of Washington legalized marijuana? I think not. H/T The Big Lead; phot…
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To-Do List for Golden State Warriors’ Klay Thompson to Return Better Next Season
Klay Thompson has evolved from a catch-and-shoot weapon to a more well-rounded player with a defensive focus, but he still has a to-do list to make him even better next season.
Thompson improved significantly between his rookie year and his second season by working hard to become the Warriors’ best perimeter defender and diversifying his offensive routine. He also worked harder to get more involved in different phases of the offense.
Klay has a high ceiling and has the worth ethic to ascend even higher. He will only be going into his third year as a professional and is still developing at the young age of 23.
He has very strong basketball roots, with his father, Mychal Thompson, being the No. 1 pick in the 1978 NBA draft. His older brother, Mychel, is currently playing in the NBA Development League, but he has also played for the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Klay put on a highlight show in Game 2 of the Western Conference Semifinals against the San Antonio Spurs. As you can see from the video, his shot was deadly that night.
Klay scored 29 points in the first half, where he hit 11 out of 18 shots from the floor and was 7-of-8 from behind the arc. He was a man amongst boys because he also came down with 14 rebounds, three steals and a block, but he only scored five more points after halftime.
Stay Consistent
After the fireworks show in the first half of Game 2, Thompson disappeared for most of the rest of the series. He scored 17 points in the Game 3 loss, but in Games 4 and 5, he did not make a single three-pointer. He didn’t even attempt one in Game 5.
Coach Gregg Popovich made the correct adjustments and minimized Thompson’s presence. Klay needs to fight through it when he gets stuck in a lull by using his other skills.
He can set up and run a pick-and-roll, or even better with his skill set, he can set up a pick-and-pop. He can also make a defensive play to change the momentum in the game.
He is a key component of this young and athletic basketball team, as he is one of the “Splash Brothers.” Thompson was on the floor for an average of 35.8 minutes this season, an uptick from the 24.4 minutes that he received as a rookie.
He started all 82 games for the Warriors as he averaged 16.6 PPG, 3.7 RPG and 2.6 threes. His shooting percentages dipped from his rookie season, probably because of all the extra minutes and the increased amount of shots he was taking.
Thompson will need to rely on his strengths, but he will also need to change the pace every so often. Instead of being the spot-up shooter, he will need to drive to the hoop, make layups or create scoring opportunities.
Start to Convert the “Klay-ups”
Speaking of layups, Klay has a penchant of bricking or missing his easy opportunities at the net. So, his unfinished layups earned the nickname “Klay-ups.”
As you can see from the video, there is no soft touch and no hope of the ball falling into the basket.
He needs to work very hard this summer to learn how to use a soft touch at the rim. Instead of being content to just reach the rim, he needs to use the same tools as Steph Curry and finish his drives to the bucket.
It will take practice and regular-season success to get him comfortable with this practice, but if he can master the layup, he will significantly improve his offensive game.
If he can make the conversion, defenders will have that doubt in the back of their mind that Klay might take it to the rack. The more consistently he can complete the finish, the more room he will have to operate when he gets the ball.
Here is a good example of Klay finishing at the rim without any doubt.
Use the National Team Experience to His Benefit
Thompson has been invited back to the U.S. Team minicamp, where he excelled last year by impressing Kobe Bryant. He learned how to drive to the basket and improved on his defensive abilities.
With his size, wingspan, length and athleticism, Thompson has significantly improved on defense and is the Warriors’ main lockdown defender. He succeeded in his confrontations against Bryant this season and will need to bring that experience to the quicker and smaller guards he will face next season.
Attack More
Finally, Klay needs to focus on attacking the basket more. He is one of the best shooters in the game, but in order to create more room for those shots, he needs to drive to the bucket.
Just like Curry, he needs to earn more trips to the foul line. This season, he averaged only 1.9 free-throw attempts per game.
He has a large, lanky frame that could easily draw more foul shots if he tried. Compared to other shooting guards, he was last in the league in free-throw attempts.
He needs to start faking the jumper and put the ball on the floor in order to draw the foul. He is a very solid shooter from the charity stripe, where he hits an average of 84.1 percent.
Klay is still a very young player with tons of upside. He will continue to grow and utilize his high basketball IQ.
He is still developing with his explosive guard partner, Steph Curry. If Thompson can mature faster than expected, he should put the Warriors in a real solid position to contend for an NBA title.
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How Warriors Can Get Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson Clicking
After a series of cannonballs during the early goings of the 2013 NBA playoffs, the Golden State Warriors’ “Splash Brothers” looked more like Olympic divers on Tuesday night.
Neither player caused as much as a ripple in the team’s crushing 109-91 defeat to the San Antonio Spurs in Game 5. Stephen Curry couldn’t find his touch from inside the arc (3-of-7) or beyond it (1-of-7), while Klay Thompson abandoned the three-point shot altogether in a rough 2-of-8 shooting performance.
The result was as bad as its been all season for Golden State’s sharpshooters:
Curry shouldered the heaviest responsibility for the loss after the game. “I was terrible, plain and simple,” he said. “They outplayed us as a team, but individually I didn’t have anything on either end. I was a step slow, shot wasn’t falling.”
Not surprisingly, this was as lopsided a defeat as the Warriors had suffered in more than a month.
So what exactly caused this untimely collapse?
Perhaps fatigue has finally set in for Golden State’s young gunners. Neither player had ever logged a single minute of postseason NBA basketball before this season, and they’ve seen more than 424 of them since this series began on May 6.
The Spurs, on the other hand, have been to this dance before. In fact their aging but still wildly productive trio of Manu Ginobili, Tim Duncan and Tony Parker (who combined for 49 points in the win) have now shared the second-most postseason minutes of any three-headed monster in league history:
But the Warriors guards aren’t simply drained from the playoff minutes. It’s the physical toll being placed on them by a pair of athletic wing defenders, Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green.
Green’s been tabbed as the Curry stopper, a move that appears wiser with each passing game. Since his 44-point outburst in Game 1, Curry has averaged just 17.3 points on 34.8 percent shooting. The sprained ankle he suffered in the closing minutes of Game 3 hasn’t helped matters.
Leonard has drawn Thompson duty and reduced the sophomore to a volume scoring role that’s seen a dramatic decrease in decibel levels by the day. Thompson averaged 26.5 points on 51.2 percent shooting in the first two games of this series, but has managed only 10.3 points on 34.1 percent shooting in his last three outings.
Thompson needs points to leave an offensive imprint on a box score. As those have been stripped away, so too has any positive impact he’s made on the series:
“Kawhi, he’s a good defender,” Thompson said after the Game 5 loss. “I’ve got to make plays in other areas and find offense in other ways.
There’s some semblance of hope that when (or if) Curry and Thompson get rolling again they’ll be joining a retooled offensive machine that’s added another weapon to its arsenal in the playoffs:
Then again, that could very well be a false sense of hope. The Spurs have stuck the smaller Tony Parker on the rookie Harrison Barnes, and San Antonio’s more than willing to allow Golden State’s offense to funnel through Barnes as opposed to Curry or Thompson.
The Warriors, led by first-year general manager Bob Myers, dramatically bolstered this team’s depth over the past 12 months. They landed a trio of productive rookies in the 2012 draft (Barnes, Draymond Green and Festus Ezeli), then added a pair of battle-tested veterans (Jarrett Jack and Carl Landry) to round out the rotation.
But this team’s immediate future lies in the hands what Mark Jackson once proclaimed as the greatest shooting backcourt in NBA history.
Curry and Thompson traded the scoring load in the Warriors’ six-game series win over the Denver Nuggets in the opening round, but now have to shine together to topple the battle-tested Spurs twice in as many games.
So how exactly does this dynamic duo get back on track?
For starters, the Warriors need to see more aggression from this pair. Neither player attempted a free throw in the 70 minutes of action they saw in Game 5.
This has been a challenge all season for the perimeter-oriented Warriors, but Curry and Thompson have each shown flashes of a strong dribble-drive attack game.
Curry has tremendous touch around the basket and good enough handles to put defenders on his hip. Thompson looks like a different player when he decides to attack the rim and has the basketball IQ to make plays both for himself and his teammates when he’s on the move.
Jackson’s screen-heavy system also needs a greater commitment from the bigs to plant momentum-killing picks (without fouling) to free up these shooters for cleaner looks from long range. If Green and Leonard pay a heavy enough physical price on the defensive end, they won’t have the legs to pour in the 33 points (on 13-of-18 shooting) they tallied in Game 5.
And Jackson has to ease up a bit on his isolation calls for Barnes and Jack. Neither player is a particularly willing passer (they had 34 field-goal attempts and three assists in 69 minutes in Game 5), meaning Jackson’s playing right into Gregg Popovich’s hands when he dials up those same locks on multiple, successive possessions.
If fatigue is truly a factor in this pair’s struggles, then perhaps the Bay Area faithful will provide a badly needed shot of adrenaline on Thursday night:
Confidence clearly isn’t an issue. This is, after all, already the most prolific perimeter-shooting tandem in league history.
They have the poise and the pedigree (both are NBA legacies) to work their way out of this funk.
But the clock’s ticking.
One more loss between now and Sunday and this dream season becomes nothing more than an optimistic take-off point for next season’s Warriors.
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Video: Klay Thompson downs the Spurs with a 3-pt shooting clinic
The Golden State Warriors fired back in Game 2 of their Western Conference semifinals series against the San Antonio Spurs.
After taking out the Denver Nuggets in the quarterfinals, the basketball world at large has wondered just how far the Warriors can travel on the back of Stephen Curry.
After dropping a heartbreaker in Game 1, the thought became ‘ the Warriors can hang with the Spurs. But can they finish them off?’ Another doubt was erased on Wednesday as the Warriors downed the veterans 100-91.
The good news for the Warriors is that the crucial daggers did not come off Curry’s fingertips.
Klay Thompson put on an aerial display hitting 8-of-9 from 3-point range.
Thompson double-doubled with 34 total points and 14 rebounds.
His performance helped the Warriors take home court advantage as they host for the next two games on Friday and Sunday.
The Warriors needed a boost from another name besides Curry who scored 22 points.
Thompson has been cold lately and it looks like he found his groo
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Klay Thompson, Warriors hold lead vs. Spurs in Game 2
Klay Thompson built the lead and Stephen Curry saved it for the Warriors in Game 2.
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Video: Kobe Bryant reverse dunks over Klay Thompson
Kobe Bryant is often described as a cold-blooded human being.His Monday night dunk over Klay Thompson only serves to push that point forward.
Thompson and the Golden State Warriors had the last laugh as they defeated the Los Angeles Lakers 109-103.
Please click here to watch this video.
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John Wall jaws at Klay Thompson during Wizards/Warriors, gets ejected (Video)
If we learn anything from the below video, it’s clear that Washington Wizards John Wall has a bone to pick with Golden State’s Klay Thompson.On Saturday, Wall had become irritated after Thompson had fouled him hard twice in the game and after the second foul, he lost it.Listen to the audio/video courtesy of CSN Washington of Wall telling Thompson, “Go to the basket next time and I’ll knock your *** out”.Those words eventually lead to Wall’s ejection:Your browser does not support iframes.(Courtesy of SB Nation)
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John Wall Chucked Against Golden State Warriors After Dissing Klay Thompson
The Washington Wizards have been on the other side of the country for nearly a week, and a matchup against the Golden State Warriors was their last before a trip back home. John Wall seemed a bit testy in his waning hours on the West Coast.
Wall picked up a technical foul in the first quarter for a bit of jawing and some excessive contact here and there, and it seemed as if that was that.
However, with the Wizards down by double digits in the third quarter, things were getting a bit chippy between Wall and Klay Thompson.
Wall went up for a layup and was completely annihilated by Thompson. On the following play, Wall came in tight on Thompson to defend an inbound pass, but he ended up getting tossed off and embellishing the contact a bit. After no call, Wall was upset and started jawing with Thompson.
John Wall is talking major smack to Klay Thompson. And it looks like Wall got ejected
— Marcus Thompson (@gswscribe) March 24, 2013
Klay Thompson and John Wall just got called for a double technical. It was Wall’s second T, so he’s been escorted to Wizards’ locker room
— Rusty Simmons (@Rusty_SFChron) March 24, 2013
John Wall probably wouldn’t have been so charged up if Klay Thompson hadn’t just shoved him to ground on layup attempt right before #wizards
— Michael Lee (@MrMichaelLee) March 24, 2013
“Go to the basket & I’ll knock your ass out.” -John Wall to Klay Thompson before getting ejected. vine.co/v/bDHV5t6xtgm
— Kyle Weidie (@Truth_About_It) March 24, 2013
Wall walked to the sidelines, at which point Wizards coach Randy Wittman gave him a look that might as well have said, “Well what are we going to do now?”
Washington went on to lose the game as the Wizards lost for just the second time in the past seven games.
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Coach’s Corner: Catching up with Georgetown’s John Thompson III
John Thompson III’s name entered the national coach of the year discussion.
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Thompson doesn’t get an allowance
Sad news to report. Klay Thompson actually handles his own money. Yes, yes, I know we all had a good time with that story last week, but it’s not true. For those behind, Thompson’s dad, former NBA player Mychal, treated us all to the splendidly amusing story of how he fined his son for taking part in the Warriors scrap with the Pacers. In this tale we learned some considerably eye-opening things about Klay, like how his parents, for whatever reason, control his bank account, and how his sole source of income is a $300-a-week allowance (plus rent money) from them. We all had a laugh about it at the expense of Klay’s reputation. But Klay wants to clear the air, probably because of the obviously embarrassing nature of his father’s purported revelations. And, sadly for all of us, the Warriors shooting guard says it was all just a joke. I guess I am behind on this, but Klay Thompson cleared the air and said his dad was joking. He said he controls his own money — Marcus Thompson (@gswsc…
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