Basketball is not a sport, it's a way of life.

It's so hard to say goodbye...

This may be a little late, but it’s the things that go unsaid that burrow themselves deepest in our pit of regrets...

My basketball Mt. Rushmore is undeniably a bit unorthodox, though I will gladly point to the fact that “my” should be doing all the work in the discussion, which is typically begun under a perfunctory auspice of subjectivity that almost immediately gives way to a pseudoscientific argument steeped in some falsely objective attack. Still, my favorite NBA players are not a collection of who I think are some of the greatest players ever. In fact, a case could be made that few of them were among the greatest players of their generations, though in kind, “greatest” is doing the work there. Don’t get me wrong, all four of them were awesome in their own right, but they are an enigmatic quartet that represents some cross-section of what makes me personally passionate about the sport:

Kevin Johnson – My father recruited “KJ” out of high school while he was an assistant at San Jose State, and as a kid, one of my claims to fame was that he held me as a baby. Additionally, I have found him woefully underrated and very worthy of a place in the Hall of Fame.

Scottie Pippen – I think before I was old enough to realize I wasn’t going to make it athletically in basketball, I knew that defense could keep me on the floor. No one ever played a better combination of on-ball and off-ball D on the perimeter than Pip. Besides, for like three years I would have argued with any and all comers—this includes an argument at a basketball camp with then Bulls assistant coach Jim Clemons—about the fact that he was actually the best Bull…forgive my youthful ignorance.

Alonzo Mourning – Basketball has always been about love and passion for me, and to this day, I have never seen a player (contemporaneously) who played with more of either.

Klay Thompson – My entire construction as a basketball player was around the idea of being as additive as possible within a framework of being a very limited player. While I’m by no means accusing Klay of the same mentality, his game—the quintessence of 3-and-D—at its peak was eminently additive while demanding very little.

That very long preamble (hey, you know my brand by now) was merely a setup for what is a very heartfelt thank you to one of my favorite players to ever play this game that I love so much. Right out of college—I mean for him, it took me a million years to finish—I was a Klay Thompson fan. Yes, it was in part because as a person perpetually cheering for the breakdown of anachronistic systems, I thought the conversations about his drug use at Washington State were antiquated and dumb. Particularly considering the oddly hushed reality that a vast majority of NBA players are weed smokers. *Pause for gasps and pearl clutching* Thankfully, the 2020 bubble helped at least quiet some of those conversations. Though I still blame Reefer Madness and Michael Beasley for it taking this long. (Quick aside to punctuate my point: I have heard overwhelmingly more about players’ marijuana use than alcohol abuse during the periods of evaluation leading them to the pros, yet subsequently, there are far more conversations about players drinking themselves out of the league than smoking themselves out of it.)

However, it wasn’t just Klay’s Cheech cosplay at WSU that interested me when he hit the league, Klay—along with his fellow splash brother Steph—was making light-skinned hip again. And for an ethnically ambiguous kid like myself (I am in fact black and white for those unfamiliar), who spent his entire childhood (most of his adulthood too) toggling between not being black enough for the black kids, but too confusing for just about everyone else, it was nice to see players that looked something like me being lauded as cool. Yet, when it came to on-court performance, Klay could have been purple for all I cared. From the moment he hit the league, number 11 had the fast pass to favorite player status. Klay’s combination of lethal shooting, aggressive and versatile defense, and undemanding style of play were everything I’ve always admired. You may notice on my Mt. Rushmore there isn’t really a first-option player. Anyone who ever had the misfortune of watching me play basketball knows why; there was no stardom built into my game. Sure, some of that is because I was the consummate coach’s son—a 5’11, white, coach son at that, so there was never going to be any taking off from the free throw line for me—but I just never had the raw ability to take me beyond where my grit and guile were going to get me. Therefore, I adored the guys who weren’t typically the best player on their teams. In Klay’s case, playing alongside the greatest shooter to ever play the game meant that he was going to be interminably undervalued to a majority of fans. But Klay never seemed to care—or at least not until much later—and I loved every bit of that. Of course, that doesn’t mean he wasn’t going to occasionally steal the spotlight, as Game 6 Klay did in the most epic of ways, but on nights where he was second or third fiddle, Klay always showed up, played his ass off, and bombed away with joyous impunity.

Evolution renders perfection unattainable. However, Klay’s shooting stroke may be the closest thing to form hitting entropy for the lack of being capable of reaching a more evolved state. Klay’s high release, beautifully consistent follow-through, and lack of dip in his shot, are just about everything a coach could hope to teach a young player. I imagine Fred Vinson walking into a gym, watching a young Klay shoot, and shedding a single tear as he quietly walks out. And in his prime, only Steph’s release was quicker—and we’re talking by a measure of milliseconds so fast the human eye struggles to perceive the difference—but no one was better at squaring his body from absurdly contorted angles. Klay could be in full sprint away from the rim, catch the ball while charging opposite of his target with his body still facing away from the cylinder, only to square-up faster than Floyd Mayweather, with shoulders inexplicably now turned towards the rim in perfect-position to do what Mayweather rarely could: deliver a knockout blow. If I were ever fortunate enough to have a child, a Klay shooting supercut would play on repeat in their bassinet. Not because I was trying to force the child to play basketball, but just to provide them with some of the most soothingly consistent beauty the world has to offer. Watching Klay shoot with his metronomic splendor at times inured one to just how deadly that precision was when wielded with malicious intent. Yet, there are fan bases across the league who know the deadliness that lies in that beauty.

I have been fortunate to attend some memorable basketball performances over my four-plus decades of watching the sport, but at the top of that pile of privileges sits a random January night in 2015; a game attended more in celebration of my day of birth—the game was on the 23^rd, while my birthday is the 25^th, but close enough—than the NorCal matchup between two diametrically opposed franchises. The night featured the Golden State Warriors, in the midst of putting together their first championship season in 40 years, versus the Sacramento Kings, who were smack dab in the middle of a run of below .500 seasons that would eventually reach 16 straight. There was not much to this game, which was being played during the doldrums of the NBA season, to lead one to believe that they were in for a night that they would tell their children and their children’s children about. Yet, that has always been part of the splendor of the Klay experience. When a player can get as scorchingly hot as Klay can, and to do so on any given night, that’s a beautiful part of what has always made him such a treat to watch. And on this night, get hot he did. After scoring 10 points in the opening quarter, Klay actually missed all three of his shots in the second period. So going into the half, there was no reason to think that he was priming to rain down historic hellfire on the Kings in the third. In fact, as it was a birthday celebration for myself, my best friend—who shall remain nameless—had come to visit and perhaps some imbibing occurred on that day. And the day before. And surely the day after. Enough of which led to said individual falling asleep during halftime. Who cares? It’s a midseason game. We’re in the nosebleeds. Might as well rest up, because we’re sure to defile ourselves further after this stinker ends. And for the first two minutes of the third, this line of thinking seemed to be correct. At the 9:45 mark Klay hit a smooth turnaround that was classic Klay to break a 58-58 tie. Again, nothing there to wake my friend for. Klay makes those shots in both his and my friend’s sleep. Then at 8:22 Klay hits a three off a transition opportunity that he himself created with a steal. Again, snooze. (Also, this dude only has five points basically 25% of the way through the quarter!) Then, another three, followed by a dunk on a lob from Steph. And though the crowd is starting to stir, my friend remains knocked out. But it’s the next shot, where Nik Stauskas proves why he’s a footnote in the history of the league, by not giving much effort and leaving way too much space for Klay, that was the moment that a charge started to go through the arena. There was this connective energy that I remember pulsating through us all as Klay started to cook. Sure, this wasn’t new, you watch the Splash Brothers enough and you know that everyone starts to collectively perk up after three or four quick makes. But the next shot, where Klay points at Stauskas’s feet, either feigning to call for a Draymond screen, or kindly showing the poor guard how foolish it is to give him that much space, that signals that Klay isn’t just getting going, he’s going insane. From there it becomes a blur of swishes off of curls, deep pulls, and tongue-wagging that sends us collectively into repeated jolts of paroxysm as Klay nailed incredible shot after incredible shot. With each make the entire arena just looked at each other with a “can you fucking believe this!” stare of incredulity that was truly the only facial contortion suitable for the moment. And yet, my friend still slept. For the record, I tried everything from gentle jostling to outright kicking in an effort to share in what was the most unbelievable display of shooting I had, and surely ever will, see in my life. By the time the quarter had ended, my poor friend’s eyes remained shut, while the rest of us, having just shared in the greatest moment of mass hysteria this side of The Biting Nuns, had witnessed the most eye-opening exhibition of shooting that anyone has ever displayed. (Sidenote: I bust balls about the incident, but more than anything, I was just sad that my friend wasn’t able to share in the moment.) I’m not sure there has ever been a more galvanizing individual performance in a meaningless game in the history of sports. There were no longer any Kings fans in the arena by the end of the third period, all 19,596 of us were now Klay evangelists by the time the quarter ended.

As we exited the arena, still on an emotional high, I stopped to buy a Klay jersey shirt from the team store, forcing my friends and ex-wife to wait through the throngs of jubilant fans, who like me, wanted a token from one of the most unbelievable shared experiences of our lives. Much like Klay himself, the shirt now is pretty beat up, but still one of my favorite things. I remember that BART ride home being awkwardly quiet. In part, that may have had to do with my friend sheepishly realizing what they had just slept through, but honestly, I think every single person on that train was still in such a state of shock and awe, that piercing the silence by conjuring words too enfeebled to capture the moment felt like a disservice.

For this piece I went back and watched the highlights of that game, and I found myself feeling sad. Not because that version of Klay the player is gone, but because that version of Klay the person hasn’t been around much lately. The unabashed joy that he exhibits during that game is what I will always love most about him as a player. I mean, don’t get me wrong, watching someone go for 37 in a quarter—even if it had been the much less likeable Boogie Cousins—is special, but watching Klay do it was fucking epic. Of course Klay has a catalogue of huge moments, but for me, this is far and away the most memorable.

At its finest, the Klay experience was one of the purest expressions of basketball joy I’ve had the privilege of watching. Once Klay went from simmer to boil—a state of change that he could activate perhaps faster than any player in NBA history—he became a hoops Gatling gun, rapidly firing off devastating three-point bombs, primal screams, and smiles that clearly said, “yeah, I just fucking did that!” We all know that’s not the Klay that the Mavericks are getting. At least not as a bucket-getter. And that’s more than okay. Klay is still a very good player, one who led the league in threes made two seasons ago and was fourth this year. He managed to still be a very productive performer despite the fact that the joy that has defined his play for so long was clearly struggling to remain at the incendiary ready. Klay was stressed. He was pressing far too often, hoping to contort his being to square up to a target whose movements never truly allow the athlete to gain purchase enough to knock them out—Father Time. Sure, much of Klay’s fall-off as a player is due to the deleterious effects of consecutive injuries that robbed him—and selfishly, us—of some of the potentially greatest parts of his career. But while his game is no longer wagyu, it’s still prime choice—a grade of beef that over or underperforms based upon expectation and preparation. I think being in Dallas, in an environment where less should be expected of him, and hopefully he expects less of himself, Klay can get back to being the joyful assassin that we all fell in love with. I want that for him. He deserves to go out smiling, looking at the crowd with that impish grin after burying another dagger. The way it ended in Golden State feels sad, as most breakups do, but maybe Klay will flex a revenge body next year. Even if he doesn’t, and the best is all but gone, those indelible moments warrant all the love and joy that we as fans of the sport can muster. It’s the least we can give him in return for all the joy he has brought us.