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Golden State Warriors mercurial forward Draymond Green asked his longtime teammate Klay Thompson to be “brutally honest” about what he thought about his ejections and suspensions on his podcast.
“Well, please be brutally honest with me,” Green told Thompson in the “The Draymond Green Show.” “It’s gonna crush me but I need to hear it.”
Thompson obliged.
“When you’re not out there, it’s like a piece of us is gone,” Thompson answered. “And me and Steph [Curry] are really nice guys, like probably too nice. No, and we can never be ourselves and have the freedom we do on the court without you. So when you’re not out there, it’s kind of like a huge chink in the armor. And I know the other team is very happy you’re not out there.”
Thompson referred to Green as the muscle of their team, the heartbeat of a team that won four championships.
“It does hurt, but at the end of the day we’ve been through so many battles,” Thompson continued. “We reached the mountaintop, been down the mountain. We had to climb back and got there again. And now we have another real shot at this.”
Thompson believes the Warriors are still in the mix despite their current position — 1oth seed in the West — which Green has a lot to do because of him missing 21 games due to two separate suspensions this season.
“So it does hurt,” Thompson said. “It can be disappointing in a moment but it will never take away from what’s ahead of us and what we’ve done. So at the end of the day, we just need you.”
Klay Thompson on Shaking Their Heads When Draymond Green Gets Ejected
Thompson clarified that they were shaking their heads every time Green got ejected not because of disgust but rather out of disappointment.
“That feeling of just like shaking your head, that just comes from like, ‘Dang, man! We can’t do this without you.’ So we love you. We need you so badly. And these young guys need you too because Steph and I are — we’re leaders but we don’t talk the game like you do. We don’t inspire these young guys like you do,” Thompson told Green.
Green received his fourth ejection this season — his first since his indefinite suspension after striking Phoenix center Jusuf Nurkic in the face — after arguing a call with referee Ray Acosta during the Warriors’ 101-93 win on March 27.
Curry got emotional after Green’s ejection.
“There’s gonna be a void there always if you’re not out there,” Thompson explained. “And we’re not the Warriors without “Money Green.” That’s just a fact. And you can ask anybody in the Bay [area] around the world who’s followed this team. We would not be the Dubs without you.”
Klay Thompson’s Future
Thompson’s raw and emotional response to Green came with the backdrop that his continued partnership with him and Curry hangs in the balance.
The Warriors swingman will become an unrestricted free agent after this season after he and the team could not agree on an extension last summer.
“Yes, I want to re-sign with the Dubs, but I also have to prioritize my mental health and lay out what is important to me at this point of my career,” Thompson said. “I know we have so much basketball ahead [play-in, playoffs] that I haven’t given it much thought.
Because if I start thinking about July 1st, I’m just doing myself a disservice. I’m not here… for me it’s just about staying present. I just want to stay present and appreciate being in the NBA.”
Thompson has not ruled out leaving the Warriors this summer with the Orlando Magic rumored to be ready to throw tons of money to lure him out of Golden State.
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