Who knew that the Golden State Warriors would sit on top of the Western Conference after losing Klay Thompson to the Dallas Mavericks? The Warriors improved to 8-2 after defeating the Oklahoma City Thunder on Sunday, 127-116, a relatively comfortable win after Chet Holmgren left the game with a hip injury. After the victory, Warriors superstar Stephen Curry answered questions about his true feelings about Klay Thompson returning to the Bay as an opponent.

“I'm not ready for this, man,” Curry said during his postgame interview, as shared by Warriors on NBCS on X, formerly Twitter.

Warriors await Klay and the Mavericks

Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry (30) celebrates with guard Klay Thompson (11) after beating the Orlando Magic at the Kia Center.
© Nathan Ray Seebeck-Imagn Images

So far, the Mavericks are not in an ideal spot, going 5-5 even though Kyrie Irving and Luka Doncic have played well, together with their new teammate Thompson. However, they have not won as many games as fans expected at this point of the season, losing a nail-biter to the Denver Nuggets despite Kyrie scoring 43 points.

While Stephen Curry sounded a little emotional about facing his former backcourt partner, both of whom terrorized the league from 2015 to 2019, Klay Thompson answered the same question bluntly.

“It'll be good to see people you grinded with obviously, but to me, it's just another regular-season game in November,” the former Splash Brother said, according to Mike Curtis on X.

Perhaps this is just Klay's competitive nature coming out, especially as the Mavericks want to find some consistency in their season. Moreover, the Warriors have flourished in their first season without him, even after failing to trade for Lauri Markkanen and Paul George in the offseason.

Thanks to Buddy Hield's hot shooting, the Warriors have put together an 8-2 record in November, clearly a surprising result based on their offseason moves, or lack thereof.

Meanwhile, in their loss to the Nuggets, Thompson shot 4-13 from the field en route to ten points, five rebounds, and four assists. He also only shot 1-6 from beyond the arc.

Still, the Warriors will pay tribute to Klay in his Bay Area return by giving away special captain's hats to the fans at Chase Center, honoring Thompson's love for sailing.