Warriors forward Draymond Green could not be more proud of how Klay Thompson is handling himself this season.
Klay Thompson‘s decline has been a major plot point for the Golden State Warriors over the past year or so. It’s not always easy for some of the best players in the league to accept that their level of play is not what it used to be. It certainly took Thompson a while to accept his new reality. But now, Thompson, a week after the Warriors benched him in a 109-98 win over the Brooklyn Nets, appears to be wholeheartedly embracing his new place in the team’s hierarchy.
In fact, Thompson has even reached the point of acceptance where he says he’s willing to take a role similar to the ones fellow sharpshooters Ray Allen and Reggie Miller had late in their careers — spot-up shooters that moved around the court who didn’t demand too many touches or play calls. And Draymond Green could not be more proud of this development, especially amid the growth of the Warriors’ youngsters that show that this is, indeed, a different era for the Dubs even though Stephen Curry is still at the top of his game.
“You see young guys taking these next steps, JK, BP. It’s a lot of growth and you got to be ok with that growth. I think Klay is growing into that…to see him settling in. It’s big for this team,” Green said, per Shayna Rubin of Mercury News.
It seems like letting go of the past has freed up Klay Thompson to be more like the Klay Thompson of yore; in their 129-107 win over the Utah Jazz on Monday, Thompson scored 26 points — a major bounce-back from his bad performance against the Phoenix Suns this past weekend.
This just proves further that Draymond Green and the rest of the Warriors, who have said in the past that they’re not worried about Thompson amid his battle with shooting slumps, are justified in their belief in the veteran sharpshooter.
“He’s resilient, always have been. I don’t worry about Klay. He’s tough. He’s tough as nails. Just got to support him. That’s what our job is — to make sure we support him at all times,” Green added, via NBC Sports Warriors.
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