What Myers believes will decide Klay’s impending free agency originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
Where Klay Thompson will play next season remains a mystery, with the prolific shooter’s impending free agency shaping up to be a marquee storyline of the 2024 NBA offseason.
Former Warriors general manager Bob Myers, who spent over a decade in Golden State with Thompson, weighed in on the five-time NBA All-Star’s looming unrestricted free agency. Myers detailed the connection between the Warriors’ foundational core three players, while revealing why he believes Thompson’s desire ultimately is to remain in Golden State.
“I will say this. Great reverence for Klay Thompson, and Steph Curry and Draymond Green,” Myers, now an ESPN analyst, said on Wednesday’s “NBA Countdown.” “I don’t know that people know or believe the competitiveness in those three. You don’t do what they’ve done for the amount of time they’ve done it without being special inside.
“Obviously we see what they do as far as shooting — Steph and Klay — and what Draymond does defensively. But who they are as people is rare. So it’s hard for me to watch Klay almost even heading into free agency. I don’t think he even knew the free agency date. Most players go through free agency five or six times, he didn’t even know what day it was.
“What that tells me is he wants to be there. You heard Steve Kerr last night, you heard Steph Curry, Draymond Green. They all want him there.”
But will Thompson stay? That’s the question that remains, and to Myers it comes down to one thing — money.
“Klay will stay if he feels like hes been appreciated and paid what is appropriate,” Myers explained. “But if he’s not, that’s the question. It’s always kind of a pride component, because it’s not money. People will say, ‘Well Klay Thompson has made all this money.’ Fine. But you know what? There’s a pride component to it for any professional athlete. So it’s not just the money. He doesn’t need any more money for the rest of his life. That’s not the point though. If somebody comes along and doubles the Warriors’ offer, things might change.”
While Thompsons’s impending free agency has grabbed the spotlight in Golden State’s offseason to-do list, Myers reiterated that the overall results from the roster as a whole are problematic for a team that had the NBA’s highest payroll during the 2023-24 NBA season.
“What do the Warriors do? It’s not just about Klay Thompson, that’s the hard question,” Myers detailed. “We’re talking about Klay Thompson but there’s other things to be answered. Because you bring this team back, and Klay Thompson comes back, this is not an ending to what we saw was a healthy team that’s acceptable for Joe Lacob and that payroll.”
Even with the Warriors finishing the season with two more wins than they did the year prior, Golden State fell from the No. 6 seed to the No. 10 seed before being dispatched by the Sacramento Kings in the NBA Play-In Tournament.
Despite an aging core — Curry is 36, Thompson and Green both are 34 — there appears to be plenty of tread left on the tires of the Warriors’ Big Three, leaving questions about how long the storied group can stick together.
Thompson shook off a rough start to his campaign to become one of the league’s most consistent shooters during the second half of the regular season, a humbling reminder that the five-time All-Star still holds tremendous value in a league that can never have enough elite shooting.
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