Getty Warriors star Klay Thompson
For Warriors star Klay Thompson, the issue with coming back to Golden State as he ventures into NBA free agency this summer is not likely to be as much about the money. The Warriors can likely finagle their way to a ground that is comfortable for both the team and Thompson in terms of annual value on a new contract.
The issue is shaping up to be the length of the deal. The Warriors are pretty well set on offering a two-year contract to Thompson, something in the ballpark—if not a bit less—of what was offered by the team last fall, when Thompson turned down a deal that would have paid him $48 million over two years.
“We’ve heard it was a two-year offer,” ESPN’s Tim MacMahon said Thursday on the podcast, “The Hoops Collective.” ‘I think that’s a given. It’s as much about years as dollars in some of these cases.”
Thompson is said to want three years, at least, and might well be able to get it elsewhere—Orlando, perhaps? Philadelphia?—as free agency ramps up. But as it stands, Thompson’s return to Golden State could well hinge on the team’s willingness to be flexible and find a way work an acceptable compromise on a third season.
Warriors Offer Limited by Age, CBA
As ESPN’s Brian Windhorst pointed out on the podcast, when the Warriors gave new contracts to Andrew Wiggins and Draymond Green, even though the upfront payments were reduced, the contracts were four years.
But there are some key differences. Wiggins is five years younger than Thompson (who is 34), and it’s impossible, really, to compare the situations. Green is also 34 but was signing his deal a year earlier than Thompson and does not have the lengthy injury history—a torn ACL and a torn Achilles tendon—that Thompson has.
The Warriors also feel that Green’s skillset will age better than Thompson’s will.
One other big difference that could keep the Warriors’ offer at two years is the new, more punitive CBA. The Warriors can’t afford to overpay Thompson the way a team like Orlando might be able to.
“The do not want to get locked into a situation where they’re sitting a bad Klay Thompson contract, even for one year,” one NBA executive told Heavy Sports. “There was a time when maybe you could do that, you could have a bad contract on the books to pay a guy who had helped the team for so long. But not under this new CBA.
“They are going to try very hard to get under the tax and they can’t have a bad deal sitting there putting them back over in a couple years.”
Klay Thompson an All-Time Great
Thompson has a sterling resume, of course. He has made 2,481 3-pointers in his career, No. 6 on the all-time list, and has done so making 41.3% from the arc. He made 301 3-pointers in 2022-23, one of only three players in league history to hit that mark.
Alas, his last memory of his mostly disappointing 2023-24 season will go down as a bitter one. He scored zero points on 0-for-10 shooting, was a minus-12 in the box score and missed all six of his 3-point attempts. The Warriors got drubbed by the Kings, 118-94, in the second play-in game in the Western Conference, ending Golden State’s season.
Thompson wrapped up the 2023-24 season with 17.9 points per game on 43.2% shooting and 38.7% 3-point shooting. It was a wildly inconsistent season, though Thompson had appeared to be heading to a strong finish. After a bench stint, he returned to the starting lineup for the final 10 games and averaged 21.8 points on 49.1% shooting and 41.6% 3-point shooting.