Klay Thompson's rapid re-acclimation from missing two-and-a-half seasons while rehabbing from multiple lower-body surgeries made it easy to take his playoff performance with the Golden State Warriors for granted.
He scored his first points since 2019 on a driving poster dunk during his long-awaited return on January 9th, then dropped 33 points on the Los Angeles Lakers a month later. By the time Thompson exploded for 37 and 38 points against the Milwaukee Bucks and Atlanta Hawks, respectively, in March, it was growing ever-easy to believe that he'd regained most of the form that once made him one of the top two-way perimeter players in basketball.
The postseason wasn't as kind to Thompson as that optimism suggested. He averaged 19.0 points per game on merely average efficiency, slowing down offensively after a hot start against the overmatched Denver Nuggets in the first round. Thompson struggled with the length and activity of the Memphis Grizzlies a round later, then failed to make good on his progress against the Dallas Mavericks in the NBA Finals, shooting just 35.6% from the field en route to the Warriors' fourth title in eight seasons.
But relative inefficiency on a steady diet of tough shots and struggles to consistently keep the ball in front of him defensively should've been considered a win for Thompson in the grand scheme. Who could've imagine before his return in January that he'd be ready to play 38.4 minutes per game versus a huge, athletic team like Boston with a title on the line? Even the ultra-confident Thompson would've found that outcome hard to believe given his long, arduous and emotionally draining path back to the floor.
Appearing on the Point Forward podcast with Andre Iguodala and Evan Turner, a reflective Thompson opened up about his supposedly “childish” behavior while rehabbing from a torn ACL and ruptured Achilles tendon.
“You wanna do what you're used to back in that mode of playing, but you kinda forget about what got you to that point, and that's all the days where I couldn't play basketball and had to do the most tedious work,” he said. “I wasn't the happiest teammate during those days, so I appreciate you, ‘Dre, and everyone else on the team. I was really irritable. Now that I look back on it, I was kind of childish, man.”
It's not for anyone else to say whether Thompson's frustrations were manifested in that respect. Even if they were, some youthful bouts of a bad attitude were bound to surface considering how long he toiled away in the training room and on the practice court, itching for that elusive clean bill of health.
Steve Kerr, remember, detailed the “low point” of Thompson's rehab shortly after Golden State took down the Celtics, recalling when he broke down in tears on the bench following a December win at Chase Center.
All that's in the rearview mirror now. Thompson played his best defense of the season in the last three games of the Finals, regularly stymying both Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown when they attacked him one-on-one. Could that be a harbinger of what's to come in 2022-23? Thompson will have hard-earned the right to try and prove it either way, just like he did getting back on the floor with the Warriors at all.
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