NBA Season Preview: Here comes Klay Thompson

There’s a whole lot of fuss being made about Steph Curry and Kevin Durant and all of the possibilities they unlock for each other, which makes sense. Putting the ball in one guy’s hands means the other gets to spot up, which is a win-win when both are all-time great shooters. Putting them in the two-man game together is straight murder — you saw what Curry and Draymond Green did together last season, and Durant is going to be a much, much more dynamic partner on offense.

But what if — WHAT IF, MY FRIENDS — the greatest beneficiary, at least in terms of single-player production, isn’t Curry, isn’t Durant, isn’t even Draymond? What if Klay Thompson pops off for a sleepy-faced 28 points per game and leads the team in scoring?

Could this happen? Maybe it requires some cynicism of Curry and Durant’s ability to mesh in roles where they have to shift towards playing off ball, although really that’s undue. This isn’t like LeBron James and Dwyane Wade; Curry and Durant are indeed ball-dominant, like LeBron and Wade, but they’re much better spot-up shooters and the Warriors already have a system in place that lionizes ball movement. How often did you see Curry pass and cut to the corner last season, or Durant catch and gun from 30 feet as the trailer in transition? The Warriors will tap right into the essence of that, thank you very much, so I can’t say that I’m much worried about Curry and Durant.

They’ll command significant defensive attention, though, and I feel like it’s a very different perception between understanding that versus understanding that Thompson will be guarded by most teams’ third best perimeter defender. That’s crazy! Especially considering the Warriors’ two-way prowess, how many teams will be able to trot out three plus perimeter defenders at once, much less a third guy able to keep pace with Thompson?

I don’t make too much of this because it’s only the preseason, but Thompson is leading the Warriors in field goal attempts per game while playing fewer minutes than both Curry and Durant. It supports the thesis. Probably more noteworthy is what Steve Kerr had to say about Thompson’s role within the new regiment:

You might think Thompson would be the one to lose out on shots under Curry and Durant, but nah. He’s down a spot on the pecking order and he won’t have the ball in his hands as much, but the shots should have no trouble filtering through. As far as being on the move without the ball goes, Thompson is right there in the Kyle Korver and J.J. Redick tier. If Curry and Durant have the stuff to make the adjustment easy, we should say that there’s very little of an adjustment at all for Thompson. He never has to force the issue. Even when it was just him and Curry running outside game last season, he was always in motion.

In Kerr’s offense, there are elements of the triangle offense mixed with Spurs-like motion; as a result, the ball never sticks, not even in Curry’s hands, and the player movement flows naturally through a chain of reads and progressions. (This ain’t no Mark Jackson show.) Even last season, the ball was often funnelled through Andrew Bogut — he’s a great passer, but still: on that team, Andrew Bogut!—from the pinch post, in a role that Kerr says Durant will occupy this season.

For Thompson, he only has to make routine cuts within the rhythm of the offense. Even those routine cuts can get pretty funky, with perimeter players screening for one another:

Overplay the screen, and Thompson is every bit as comfortable cutting backdoor as he is springing for three—this is a simple counter to their oft-used split cut action:

Durant is a wildly different player from Bogut, but he’s a brilliant passer in his own right, and defenses are actually going to have to defend him like he’s Kevin Durant. He indulged in a lot of isolation, ball-stopping garbage in Oklahoma City, but Kerr’s system is too well-ingrained in this team for that to last. That means Thompson, who canned 43 percent of his threes last season and finished in the 93rd percentile of points per possession in spot-up plays, is only going to get even better looks next season.

As far as compelling Warriors narratives go, the guy scoring the most points per game is a purely secondary thing, but Thompson, as the raw stats beneficiary, illustrates the problem that opposing teams are going to face — no matter what, teams are still going to have game-plan for Curry and Durant first. There’s only one ball and plenty of guys who are going to need the ball in their hands, but the floor balance will make it impossible for teams to cover everybody. Thompson is going to be open a lot, and when he isn’t, he’s going to stay on the move, all to his team’s benefit.

The moral of story isn’t exactly “Klay Thompson ascendent”, but a lot of focus is going to be placed on Curry and Durant (and apparently even Draymond) this season. Let’s not forget Thompson, who is going to shoot, score, dish and defend as the perfect third wheel for the Warriors. Believe it or not, these guys are going to be dangerous.