Bad luck
The start of the week marked a new beginning for the Warriors as Klay Thompson formally bid goodbye to the only franchise whose jersey he has had the pleasure of using since joining the league in 2011. Given his desire to angle for big bucks through a longer timeframe, they could not conceivably keep him in the fold and, at the same time, stick to their mandate of exercising fiscal prudence. The instructions from ownership were clear: They need to compete in the foreseeable future without hitting the luxury tax, which set them back a record $177 million for their salary foibles in the immediate past season.
The irony, of course, is that Thompson will ultimately sign for less money than what the Warriors initially offered him. Last year, they dangled an extension that would have netted him $48 million and kept him in the fold until 2026. As things have turned out, he will instead be plying his trade with the Mavericks for an additional year and $2 million. Needless to say, he overestimated his worth in free agency by rejecting their offer; not even the awash-in-cash Magic deemed him worth backing up the Brinks truck for despite an obvious need for a veteran presence to guide foundational piece Paolo Banchero.
To be fair, the Warriors were stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place. They may have wanted to keep the core of their dynasty alive, but reality sank in. They needed to pivot quickly after having just failed to advance past the play-in tournament, and his advancing age and history of injury made him expendable. And any doubts they had due to sentimentality were erased by his utterly atrocious showing in their do-or-die affair against the Kings; he hit zero of 10 attempts from the field to finish scoreless in a rout.
Indeed, Thompson deserved a better valedictory than his clunker last April. After all, he was integral to their four championships in six finals appearances over the last decade. On the other hand, the Warriors knew well enough not to throw good money over bad. He had become exceedingly bad on defense over the last two years in contrast to his reputation as a two-way dynamo, finishing with a defensive rating that, interestingly enough, ranked him alongside the Lakers’ would-be-trade-bait D’Angelo Russell.
Whether Thompson pans out for the Mavericks remains to be seen. On paper, he’s primed to contribute heavily to their heliocentric offense. Perennial Most Valuable Player candidate Luka Doncic and all-star Kyrie Irving will love playing alongside him as an always-viable catch-and-shoot target. The flipside, of course, is that all three are decided minuses on the other end of the court. Meanwhile, honchos in the Bay Area are smiling, if secretly, because of what’s in store following the reset. Bottom line, there is such a thing as addition by subtraction, and the Warriors look to capitalize on the result.
Anthony L. Cuaycong has been writing Courtside since BusinessWorld introduced a Sports section in 1994. He is a consultant on strategic planning, operations and human resources management, corporate communications, and business development.