Klay Thompson has completed two games after his return to the courts after 941 days and two serious injuries in between. A splendid news for the player himself, for the Golden State Warriors and for the NBA in general, beyond any quantifiable data or result that has occurred these days.
It is still too early to draw firm conclusions as the sample is very small and subject to a minute restriction that, for now, is limiting their participation to the first five and last minutes of each half. Still, the first glimpses of Klay Thompson from lifetime They have not been slow to appear, awakening the optimism of teammates and coaching staff. “He looks fast,” he said. head coach Steve Kerr. “He looks agile and strong. It’s really exciting to watch.”
The promising images that had reached us weeks before his reappearance showed a player who had not lost an iota of his aim. However, there were doubts about his explosiveness, mobility and movement in a top-level environment due to the sensitivity of his two injuries. An uncertainty that the player himself has tried to clear up.
Thompson has been very aggressive in attacking the rim in these two games. The play that will always remain in the retina of the fans and in the league newspaper library will be the mate between two Cavaliers players after getting rid of Jarrett Allen. A very vertical trend that he maintained during Tuesday’s confrontation against the Memphis Grizzlies, which ended in defeat for the San Francisco team.
Already in the first three minutes he attacked the paint twice, with different outcomes. On the first play, he took advantage of an Andrew Wiggins block to receive Juan Toscano’s pass, fumble past Kyle Anderson and find the lane to the rim. Ziaire Williams’ opposition does not allow him to finish in the basket.
A prize that yes obtained in the second sample. The forward takes advantage of the dribble to go out to the left, leave Williams for speed and finish at the last hoop after absorbing contact from Jaren Jackson Jr. And it’s not just what he generates with the ball in his hands, but the shooting possibilities that he generates for his teammates: on the first play, the five Grizzlies players are attentive to his penetration, leaving three players completely free on the perimeter. Among them, Stephen Curry.
Steve Kerr was asked after the game against Memphis if he saw his pupil’s aggressiveness to get to the rim compared to before the injury. “He’s been out for so long that even the game has changed in these last two and a half years,” the head coach declared. “It seems that the quintets are smaller and there is not as much protection in the rim. There are defensive switches everywhere, so you end up with a guard in the paint after a change. I just think Klay is reading these opportunities and attacking.”
We insist that the sample is very small but, for now, the statistics confirm Kerr’s words and what has been seen so far. In these first two meetings, only 12.9% (4 of 31) of Klay Thompson’s attempts have come from the mid–range, according to data from NBA.com. This figure shot up to 32% and 34% in the 2017-18 and 2018-19 campaigns. In the first it was one of the ten players with the most attempts from this distance.
In fact, we see palpable differences between his shot chart against the Grizzlies and the one compiled during his previous active season, the 2018-19.
This is how the protagonist himself sees it: «It is a small sample size but I am only being aggressive. Defenders are always going to defend me hard because of my jump shot. I got blocked a couple of times tonight, so I had to make those other plays,” Thompson said.
Seen from a general perspective, Klay’s presence has already returned positive returns to his team. Against Memphis he scored 14 points and recorded a +17 in his twenty minutes on the court. In total, he has scored 31 goals in 40 minutes, which shows that his spark remains intact and that he has been able to adapt to the context of both clashes and make the correct readings.
Even so, Klay Thompson has known little. “I hope to achieve greatness every time I step on the court. I’m not happy with a five out of thirteen [en tiros de campo]. I should have scored at least eight tonight.”
(Cover photo by Justin Ford/Getty Images)