Klay Thompson has never needed much time to score.
On Saturday night, the Dallas Mavericks guard put up 23 points, all before halftime, in a 138–120 win over the Utah Jazz. By the time the third quarter started, Thompson was already done for the night offensively. The damage had been done.
Those points pushed Thompson past 17,000 for his NBA career. It’s not a round number that jumps off the page the way some milestones do, but for Thompson, it carries some weight. He’s missed two full seasons. He’s changed teams. His role has shifted. And he’s still adding to the total.
The next benchmark on the list is the top 100 in career scoring. Thompson is nine spots away. At his current average of 11.7 points per game, it’s realistic he gets there sometime this season or early next year, assuming the minutes stay steady.
A Look Back at Klay Thompson’s Career
GettyKlay Thompson of the Dallas Mavericks reacts after making a basket against the Sacramento Kings.
Thompson entered the league in 2011 as the 11th overall pick out of Washington State. He wasn’t billed as a future star. He was billed as a shooter who fit. That turned out to be enough.
He spent the first 13 years of his career with the Golden State Warriors, where he became part of one of the defining backcourts of the era. Alongside Stephen Curry, Thompson helped reshape how teams defended the perimeter. He didn’t need the ball much. He didn’t dribble much. He just got open and fired.
Over his career, Thompson has averaged 19.1 points per game. He’s shot just over 41 percent from three on massive volume and has made more than 2,800 threes in the regular season alone. He’s also been steady at the free-throw line, right around 86 percent for his career, which adds up over time.
The big nights are still what people remember most. The 37-point quarter. The 14 threes in a game. The 60 points in 29 minutes. Those games didn’t just happen once. They became part of his reputation.
But Thompson’s résumé isn’t built on offense alone. He made an All-Defensive Second Team in 2019 and routinely drew tough perimeter assignments during Golden State’s championship runs. He was rarely flashy about it, which fits the rest of his career.
Thompson won four NBA titles with the Warriors and made five All-Star teams. He also won gold medals with Team USA at the 2014 FIBA World Cup and the 2016 Olympics. Then came the injuries. An ACL tear in the 2019 Finals. An Achilles injury before the following season. Two full years gone.
A lot of players don’t come back from that. Thompson did. He returned in 2022 and was part of another championship team.
Now he’s in Dallas, and the job looks different. Last season, he started every game he played and averaged 14 points. This year, he’s coming off the bench more often and averaging 11.7. The usage is lower. The shots are more selective.
Still, nights like Saturday remind you how quickly it can add up.
Seventeen thousand points isn’t the defining number of Thompson’s career. It doesn’t need to be. It’s just another mark on a résumé that keeps growing, even now.
Klay Thompson Eclipses Another Career Milestone