Former NBA player and current basketball analyst Austin Rivers spoke on his podcast about how the Golden State Warriors treated Klay Thompson and what led to him signing with the Dallas Mavericks in the offseason. He would talk about the topic of Thompson on his own podcast called “Off Guard” produced by Spotify and The Ringer.
Rivers would criticize the Warriors in how they handled Thompson last season, saying that they should have kept the “nucleus” of what brought the franchise success in the first place which also includes Stephen Curry and Draymond Green. He would double down and say that if Golden State is going “all in” on the two players mentioned before, then you also have to do it with Thompson.
“It ain’t right, and if you gotta pay someone then pay him. Especially what he’s done for your franchise,” Rivers said. “A 3 year deal, that’s cool, you’ve got 3 years left on Draymond’s thing. Steph’s got about 3 more years, you keep the nuclease around. You got Kuminga, you got some other guys, maybe you go shop them or not I don’t know. You go all in on this because if you’re going all in on Steph, you go all in with Klay, if you go all in with Draymond, you go all in with Klay.”
Rivers believes the Warriors alienated Thompson
The critiques from Rivers also goes far beyond the offseason and Thompson as he spoke about how he was treated in terms of being benched throughout the season when he went on multiple dry spells. Rivers would even go as far as to say that the Warriors were alienating him like when they gave more minutes to rookie Brandin Podziemski.
“You don’t alienate Klay, you don’t take Klay’s minutes and put (Brandin) Podziemski in,” Rivers said. “But they started this earlier in the season, and that’s when Klay was like alright I’m f—-ing out, this is ridiculous. I’ve been holding it down for this whole organization, look what I’ve done. Yes Steph’s at the top but I’m right under him, I’ve been the Robin to his Batman for a lot of years.”
“You're taking my minutes because I’m going through a shooting slump this year for Podziemski? Again this isn’t a Podziemski hate thing, he’s a good player, he ain’t Klay Thompson no disrespect,” Rivers continued. “It was ridiculous, especially when the Hall of Famer is putting up 18 a game. It would be one thing if he’s averaging 9 points per game shooting 30% from the field. My man’s averaging 18 a game, shooting right under 40% from 3.”
Rivers says Warriors “got worse” with Thompson departure
Last season, Thompson averaged 17.9 points, 3.3 rebounds, and 2.3 assists per game while shooting 43.2 percent from the field and 38.7 percent from the three-point line. Rivers would go on to say that the Warriors “got worse” while the Mavericks, who just made the NBA Finals, now got better with signing Thompson to a three-year, $50 million deal.
“Now you’ve got him on the Mavs,” Rivers said. “Mavs got better the Warriors got worse, so now we talk about what do they do with Steph, I don’t know, they got worse. And Steph is still in his prime, he’s at the end of it, but he’s still really good, it’s a shame.”
Time will tell how the Warriors and Mavericks will play with their subtraction and addition respectively, but some may call it the “end of an era” for the former as the aforementioned three players won four championships and made six NBA Finals. Last season, Golden State had a 46-36 record which put them tenth in the Western Conference as they lost to the Sacramento Kings in the play-in tournament.
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