Klay Thompson

Every Warriors fan I know has a Klay night. Mine's a Friday in January 2015, watching a guy who barely changed expressions turn Oracle into a madhouse, and the thing I remember most is how calm he looked while the rest of us lost our minds. That was always the deal with Klay. We'd be screaming. He'd be jogging back on defense like he'd just hit a layup in a pickup game.

He was born in Los Angeles on February 8, 1990, and he grew up around the league. His dad, Mychal Thompson, was the first overall pick in the 1978 draft. His brother Mychel played a little in the NBA and his brother Trayce made the big leagues in baseball. The family moved to Ladera Ranch when Klay was 14, and he graduated from Santa Margarita Catholic in 2008.

Washington State got him for three seasons. He was a two time first team all conference pick, and as a junior he led the Pac 10 in scoring. Then the Warriors took him 11th overall in the 2011 draft, which in hindsight is one of the best things this franchise has ever done on a draft night. Nobody threw a parade at the time. We should have.

He started his rookie year on the bench. Then the Warriors traded Monta Ellis in March 2012, the job was his, and he finished the year on the All Rookie First Team. By 2012/13 he and Steph Curry were combining for more threes than any duo the league had ever seen, and somebody started calling them the Splash Brothers. It stuck because it was true. In the second round against San Antonio that spring he went for 34 in a playoff game and hit 8 of 9 from deep. I remember thinking, okay, this kid isn't a role player.

Then the run started. On January 23, 2015 he scored 37 points in the third quarter against Sacramento, 13 for 13 from the field, nine threes, an NBA record for a quarter that still makes me laugh out loud when I think about it. He made his first All Star team that winter, and in June the Warriors beat Cleveland in six for the franchise's first title in 40 years. Klay was 25 and already part of the best backcourt in the sport.

The 2015/16 team won 73 games, and Klay won the Three Point Contest at All Star weekend, beating Steph and Devin Booker in the final round. Then he saved the season. Down 3 to 1 to Oklahoma City in the West finals, he went to their building for Game 6 and hit 11 threes, a playoff record at the time, and scored 41. We won Game 7. He made 98 threes that postseason, tied for the most ever. And then we blew the 3 to 1 lead in the Finals, and I'm not going to talk about that.

Kevin Durant came, and Klay just kept doing Klay things. Sixty points against Indiana on December 5, 2016 in 29 minutes, which nobody had ever done in under 30 minutes. Titles in 2017 and 2018. Thirty five points and nine threes in Game 6 against Houston in 2018 when we were one loss from going home. Fourteen threes in Chicago in October 2018, an NBA record. And through all of it he guarded the other team's best guard, which is how he finally made the All Defensive Second Team in 2019.

Then Game 6 of the 2019 Finals. The last game ever at Oracle. He had 30 points when he went down on a fast break late in the third quarter with a torn ACL, and he walked back out to shoot his two free throws before he left. We lost by four. That summer he signed a five year deal to stay, and then he missed the whole next season with the knee and the whole season after that with a torn Achilles from a pickup game in Los Angeles. Two straight years of nothing. Some of us honestly wondered if we'd ever see him play again.

We did. January 9, 2022, 941 days after the knee, Chase Center lost its mind when he checked in against Cleveland. He scored 17. By May he was Game 6 Klay again, dropping 30 with eight threes to close out Memphis, and in June the Warriors won the title in Boston in six games. Four rings. I cried a little at that one and I'm fine admitting it.

The last two Warriors seasons were harder. He led the league with 301 threes in 2022/23 and led the league in free throw percentage in 2023/24, but he was coming off the bench by February 2024, and his final game in a Warriors uniform was a play in loss in Sacramento in April where he went 0 for 10. That hurt to watch. In July 2024 he left for Dallas in a six team sign and trade. Steph said it sucked. It did.

He played two seasons for the Mavericks. Nights in Dallas included passing Reggie Miller and then Damian Lillard on the all time threes list, which puts him fourth ever as of 2026, and the night he came back to Chase Center as a visitor in November 2024, got a tribute video, and hit six threes on us anyway. In August 2026 he agreed to a buyout with Dallas and signed with the Miami Heat, chasing a fifth ring at 36.

The Warriors have already said they'll retire his number 11 at Chase Center when the time comes, and Steve Kerr has said he'll have a statue outside the building someday. Whatever uniform he's wearing this winter, around here he's ours. Thirteen years, 2,481 threes as a Warrior, second only to Steph in franchise history. Every one of them went in like he expected it to.

Klay's whole reputation in the big moments comes down to one phrase fans still say out loud: Game 6 Klay. It wasn't a marketing line. It's what happened when the season was on the line and everybody else on the floor got tight.

Look at the elimination games. Oklahoma City in 2016, down 3 to 1, on the road, down eight going into the fourth quarter, and he scored 19 in that fourth including the go ahead three with a minute and a half left. Houston in 2018, down 3 to 2, down 17 early, and he hit nine threes in a 29 point blowout. Memphis in 2022 wasn't an elimination game for us, but it was a closeout, and he put up 30 with eight threes to end it.

And he did all of it while guarding the other team's best perimeter player most nights. That's the part casual fans miss. Steph got the spotlight. Klay got Lillard, Irving, Harden, whoever, and then still had enough in his legs to fire away from 28 feet in the fourth quarter.

He wasn't perfect, and I won't pretend he was. There were cold playoff series, and his last Warriors game was 0 for 10 in a play in loss. But when people ask me who I'd want shooting with the season on the line, a guy who hit his free throws on a torn ACL in the NBA Finals is a pretty easy answer.