Getty Golden State Warriors star Klay Thompson celebrates with the Larry O'Brien Trophy during the team's 2022 victory parade.
The Golden State Warriors are heading into the 2022-23 season in familiar territory for their current crew. After a multiyear, injury-induced blip, Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green and the rest of the crew are once again the defending NBA champions.
However, just a few, short months ago, there was a thought that the Dubs’ big comeback bid might just die on the vine.
During the latter part of last season, Green and Andre Iguodala were both dealing with mysterious injuries, Otto Porter was having health struggles of his own, the kids — Jonathan Kuminga and Moses Moody — clearly weren’t ready to play major roles in a title pursuit and things weren’t jelling on the court, either. Then, the coup de grace came when Marcus Smart decided to dive into Steph’s legs and put him on the injured list, too.
In spite of all that, though, Thompson apparently never lost faith in his team’s ability to get the job done. And now, with his fourth ring secured, he’s calling out any and everyone who jumped off the Warriors’ bandwagon when the going got tough.
Klay Sounds Off on the ‘Experts’
“I know it hurt them bad.”
Klay calls out at NBA media ‘experts’ who doubted the Warriors 🍿
(via @KlayThompson)
Thompson, who emerged from a 900-plus day absence as a 20-point scorer and a key cog for the title run, has been wild’n out on his Instagram of late. In recent days, he has gone live to show off his shooting form while waxing philosophical about the prospect of a rehab-free summer, as well as his desire to snag a fifth championship ring.
More recently, he popped on IG Live to send a quick message to all of those pundits who doubted his squad in its title chase, as well as those that would listen to their musings.
“You can’t really believe anyone who has the ‘expert’ on their TV analysis of their respective sport, but never really did the damn thing,” Thompson said, via Bleacher Report on Twitter.
“You can’t trust them. You can’t trust their opinion, you can’t trust their expertise because they literally said we were dead in the water. And what did we do? Win the championship. So, how did it feel? I know it hurt them. I know it hurt them bad.”
Steph served up an and-one to Klay’s comments, responding to a clip with a tweet that read: “Hahahahahahahaha that’s my dawg!!!”
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Report: Dubs Have Discussed KD Move
Although there has been a level of chatter about a potential reunion between the Warriors and Kevin Durant since the latter requested a trade from the Brooklyn Nets, some have wondered whether such a scenario actually has any basis in reality. However, ESPN’s Brian Windhorst has indicated that the possibility has indeed been discussed by the team’s top decision-makers.
“This has been a discussion inside the Warriors organization,” Windhorst said during an appearance on The Dan Patrick Show.
“Curry has been asked about it and Curry gave a non-answer, but he didn’t shut it down. He didn’t say, ‘Hell no,’ which he has every right to do. Be like, ‘No, I just won the Finals MVP. No, we do not need to do Kevin Durant, we need to bring our team back together and try to repeat.”
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