NBA: The Splash Brothers Re-Debut Is Coming.
With Klay Thompson set to return soon, Golden State's dynamic backcourt duo is going to be together on the floor for the first time since the 2019 Finals.
Now that Stephen Curry has set the three-point record, basketball fans get to look forward to another another fantastic event looming on the horizon out west. Klay Thompson is coming back.
Ahead of his return, I thought it would be worth revisiting just how special the Curry-Thompson combination has been since they first joined forces. Over seven years since Klay’s debut, the Splash Brothers have played more than 500 games together for the Golden State Warriors.
Klay actually first got a starting job in part because of Steph’s misfortune. Curry injured his right ankle multiple times early on in his career, and went down for good on March 11th in Los Angeles. After that, Klay started the next 28 games, averaging 18.6 points, 3.3 rebounds, 3.0 assists, and 1.1 steals on 44% shooting overall and 38% from deep in his first turn as a full-time starter (35.6 minutes per game).
Consistency and durability—shooting above 40% from deep year after year and only ever missing more than five games once in eight seasons—have characterized Klay’s value to the Warriors. Over the ‘12-13 and ‘13-14 seasons, he averaged 17.5 points, shot 41% from deep, and played in 163 of a possible 164 games.
In the ‘13-14 campaign, Klay was a career-best +1.2 on defense and shot 42% on threes. Steph made his first of six consecutive All-Star and All-NBA teams, and Golden State hit the 50-win mark for the first time in two decades. As a team, they had the third best defensive rating and the fourth best net rating, but they lost to the Clippers in seven games in the first round of the 2014 playoffs.
It’s not entirely clear why Mark Jackson was dismissed after the 2014 campaign, which still stands as the eighth best season in the 75 years of Warriors history. As usual, there are a lot of conflicting reports around what happened during his tenure, but in the end it resulted in rookie head coach Steve Kerr taking the reins.
Kerr had the luck of taking over of a team with a young core of Steph, Klay, Harrison Barnes, and Draymond Green, that was backed up by six competent veterans who all played 15 or more minutes per game—Leandro Barbosa, Andrew Bogut, Andre Iguodala, David Lee, Shaun Livingston, and Marreese Speights.
The roster was incredibly balanced. It had multiple different guys who could make plays, create their own shots, work off the ball, defend ball handlers, read and react to switches and help rotations, and it had an All-Star point guard in Steph with a worthy backcourt companion in Klay. But Kerr couldn’t have known just how successful the team was going to be.
Through the All Star break that first year, the Warriors were 43-8, and were outscoring their opponents by an average of 11 points per game. Steph made his second straight All-Star team as a starter, and Klay set an NBA record with 37 points and nine threes in a single quarter in January to seal the deal on his own All-Star candidacy.
Over his first 50 games, Klay averaged 22 points and shot 44% from deep, and only marginally regressed in the back end of the season, averaging 21 points and 43.5% on threes to close things out.
They finished the season 67-15, breaking the franchise win record that had stood for 40 years, and finishing first in the West ahead of two very good Rockets and Clippers teams. They had the best defense and the best net rating by a long shot, and their offense was the only one anywhere near the first ranked Clippers.
Oh, and Steph beat out James Harden and LeBron James to win his first MVP award. He averaged 23.8 points (which sounds ridiculously low for an MVP these days), 4.3 rebounds, 7.7 assists, and 2 steals on 49% shooting overall and 44% shooting from deep. After the All-Star break, he hot just under 50% overall and 51.7% on threes in 29 games. The man was 125-242 from behind the arc after the All-Star game. Kind of makes Klay’s 43.5% mark over the same stretch seem like child’s play.
We all know what happened next. Steph won back-to-back MVP awards, and became the first and only unanimous winner after leading the league in both steals and scoring while entering the elite 50/40/90 shooting club. The Warriors set the record for most wins in a season and gave up a 3-1 lead in the 2016 Finals, Kevin Durant joined the team, and the Warriors returned to win back-to-back titles against LeBron and the Cavaliers in 2017 and 2018 before finally ending the streak with a loss to the Raptors in 2019. They put together five of the top six seasons in franchise history, and are responsible for three of Golden State’s five NBA championships.
Klay was crucial to that stretch of dominance. He averaged 21.6 points per game, 3.7 rebounds, and 2.4 assists on 47% shooting overall and 42.3% from deep. He made five straight All-Star teams, two All-NBA teams, and the 2018-19 All-Defensive team, and was arguably snubbed from a few of those in other years.
In 2016, he set a career high with 60 points in just 29 minutes against the Pacers. He only played in three quarters and both Steph and Draymond had double digit assists because Klay took a career-high 33 attempts. He actually passed both Curry and Kevin Durant’s career highs that day and became the fourth Warrior in history to hit the 60 point mark. Watch this video. It’s good for the soul.
The now famous performance was perfectly emblematic of his game—almost all of his movement occurred off the ball, nearly all of his baskets were assisted, and the few dribbles he did take were mostly to relocate to the side or step past a lunging defender. It’s exactly that kind of play that has made Curry and Thompson such a potent combination.
Everyone remembers Curry’s shot against the Thunder to win the game in overtime in 2016. But I certainly forgot until reviewing the tape that Klay was pretty darn important to that victory too.
Klay made an and-one to tie the game at 118, and then forced a missed bank shot on the other end that set up Curry’s three to put the Warriors up three with less than a second remaining. And for OKC’s final possession with 0.6 seconds on the clock, Curry was on the bench and Klay was in, because he’s a key component of their defensive stopping power.
After Steph set the record for most threes in a game in 2016, Klay beat it with 14 of his own against Chicago in October of 2018. That was the most recent season he played in. In other words, he was still getting better when he went down. He hit that 14th three with nearly five minutes to go in the third quarter, but given that the Warriors were up 113-69 at that point he didn’t get a chance to extend the record any further.
Here’s a compilation of Steph setting the record in 2016 and Klay breaking it in 2018. Steph assisted on the three that tied his own record, of course. Curry does it with a little more flare, but Klay is just as fun to watch, and he stays within his game to do it.
In the footage against Chicago you can also see Klay’s style of play at work. He is a master of catch and shoot opportunities, but he can also put the ball on the floor to get where he wants. He has one of the purest shots in the league—his catch, his release, his follow through, it’s the same every single time he shoots the ball whether it’s off the dribble, a pass, or a handoff.
The truth is that we don’t know what Klay will look like when he returns to action.
What we do know is that he’s been missed in the locker room, not just on the court. When Steph set the record for career threes, Klay’s jersey was up in the locker room next to him, and Curry bought Klay—who has assisted on more than 100 of those threes—a gift to commemorate his role in making it possible.
Klay is also just the best. He’s a total dork, and he doesn’t take his status as a celebrity too seriously. It’s not even clear what that would look like. As Draymond said in 2015:
"I just think he doesn't realize it. Klay will just go and walk down the street anywhere. It's like, 'Brah, you can't do that no more.' "
Since his injuries, he’s still been an active member of the team. When he couldn’t do serious rehab yet he came to games and sat on the sidelines, or rode the exercise bike just off court. He takes his boat from his house in Tiburon to Chase Center, and has been kayaking around the bay and building his way up to swimming in the Pacific more regularly. He also loves his dog, Rocco, who is probably his best friend.
What makes Klay’s game so much fun to watch is just how unassuming he is. He’s certainly intense and obviously a hard worker, but the guy you see walking down the street hardly strikes you as someone who can drop 50 points on your favorite team.
So no matter what happens when he finally hits the floor for the first time in two and a half years, it will be good to have him back.