NBA Finals Player Preview: Tristan Thompson

The box score will never truly capture the importance of Tristan Thompson to the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Remember that infamous flop by LeBron James midway through the Eastern Conference finals? The guilty elbow belonged to his teammate, Tristan Thompson. If LeBron’s fainting spell carried the weight of consciousness, Tristan’s flailing floated on reflex. He left the scene in a fear of salt pillars. No looking back, he marched on to collect eight rebounds and zero points in addition to that one elbow.

However, if the Cavs are to upend the Warriors, maybe that line needs to curve upward just a little, if not all the way to the rafters.

Tristan Thompson is a hard man to figure. After all, that left elbow was his right elbow, until his right elbow turned good. Think of him like you would a mercurial old man on the Disney channel. “Damn kids!” he yells, while shaking a fist. Then again, while he is one of the most tenured Cavaliers on the roster, he’s also just 25 years old.

When the Cavs finally dispensed with Toronto, he was the only starter from Cleveland not to score in double figures. His minutes diminished by the friendlier — and older — Channing Frye. Such is life for a youngster who is neither a three-point shooter, nor a true center. Still, Tristan contributes in other ways, sort of. He rebounds at about twice the rate he scores, but he scores at a snail’s pace. He is the Cav most lost in the shuffle. But, in the upcoming series against Golden State, he will spend time guarding everyone from Andrew Bogut to Draymond Green, Festus Ezeli, and Harrison Barnes. The Warriors will attempt to treat him like a turnstile, and he must refuse. Better to lose himself than his man. That is his calling, to switch or be switched.

The problem with a player like Tristan Thompson is that a stat sheet will never fully explain all that he did or didn’t do on a given night. He could sleepwalk into ten rebounds or rampage his way to a dozen—that’s his hustle. At this stage in his career, he isn’t quite a Biyombo in bloom. And yet, for as often as people complain about the highs and lows of Kevin Love, rarely do those same people praise the straight line that is Tristan Thompson. And while the reasons for Tristan’s being let off the hook lie in the scaly promise of Love’s versatility, the hint remains in Thompson’s body of work that he could awake at any minute and reveal one more hidden truth about himself. Who knows? Maybe there’s more to him than being right-handed, at least Cleveland would like to think so.

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