With his 60-point eruption against the Indiana Pacers, Klay Thompson proved that he’s no longer the forgotten man for the Golden State Warriors.
When Kevin Durant decided to take his talents to the Golden State Warriors, one of the biggest questions everyone was asking was what was Klay Thompson’s role on this new “superteam” going to be?
Many (including yours truly) thought that Klay would be regulated to the “Chris Bosh Role,” the third wheel that provided defense and timely points when needed.
But when he dropped 60 points on a struggling Indiana Pacers team Monday night, he showed the Warriors, and the world, that he wouldn’t be the forgotten man in Golden State.
Klay Thompson knocks down a corner three late in the 3rd quarter to give him 60 Pts in the game, a new career-high. https://t.co/7iJKUcKK2b
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) December 6, 2016
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He became the first player since 2003 to score 40 points in a half, and his 60 through the three quarters was the most in a game since 2005 when a certain player who went by the name of Kobe Bryant scored 60 in route to his historic 81-point night against the Toronto Raptors.
In short, Klay is still here.
Thompson’s 60-point game proved that he still has star power. He isn’t the “glorified shooter” who can play man-to-man defense on anyone in the league anymore. He’s an inhuman scorer who can play man-to-man defense on any player in the league, and on any other team, that would promptly make him their best player.
With all due respect to the San Antonio Spurs’ Kawhi Leonard, who has truly arrived as a star himself, Thompson is perhaps the best two-way player in the game today, and when you watch Thompson’s performance on that epic night, you have to ask yourself how much longer can he take being the third banana to Kevin Durant and Stephen Curry?
When Durrant and Curry teamed up together, many people went to sleep on Thompson, and for the better part of the first quarter of the 2016-17 season the Warriors were essentially being branded as the “Steph and KD Show.”
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But Thompson woke everybody back up from their deep slumber and showed that he still has the tools to be “The Man” in this league, and for one night, he got all of the glory of a player with that title.
But we have to wake up the next morning, and reality will hit him once again that he’s the “Chris Bosh” of the Warriors, which is a title that many still believe he isn’t too thrilled with.
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So when you look at his performance from that prespective, Klay’s 60-point eruption was more than just being hot. It was also about letting the Warriors know that he has too much talent to be relegated to being the forgotten star.