It's safe to say Klay Thompson's early-season shooting slump is over.
The Golden State Warriors star has hit a scorching 56.7% of his triples in his last three appearances, also making at least half of his field goal attempts overall—something Thompson hadn't done until the Warriors' win over the Knicks last Friday.
The floodgates truly opened for Thompson one game later, when he drained 10 threes en route to 41 points in a comeback win over the Houston Rockets. He was on pace for another huge night 48 hours later, dropping 15 first-quarter points against the LA Clippers before setting into an ancillary role for the remainder of another Warriors win.
Thompson has credited a players-only team meeting last week and a subsequent one-on-one chat with Draymond Green for his improved play of late. He's clearly taken team-wide themes of trusting teammates, staying patient and letting the game come to you offensively to heart, exercising better shot selection and regularly making extra passes.
It's not just encouragement from his teammates and a resulting change in approach that's fueled Thompson's breakout, though.
After letting widespread criticism of his play nag at him over the first three weeks of the season, most memorably in the form of an emotional response to Charles Barkley insisting Thompson is “not the same guy” post-injury, the four-time champion decided to give up “lurking” on social media.
Based on his comments before Friday's game against the Utah Jazz, don't expect Thompson to go back to it anytime soon.
“Klay Thompson says his social media avoidance has been great for him and concedes there was a correlation to not playing well. ‘If you lurk, you get hurt,'” Monte Poole of NBC Sports Bay Area posted on Twitter.
There will be games Thompson's jumper comes and goes over the season's duration. He's still re-acclimating from missing two-and-a-half seasons to serious injury, after all, and some measure of decline is natural from a player turning 33 in February.
As long as he's able to avoid sustained struggles and the lure of scouring social media notifications, though, expect Thompson to remain a crucial cog as the defending-champion Warriors continue righting the ship.
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