Dub Hub: Klay Thompson scrimmages with the Bahamas national team

In today’s Dub Hub:

• Klay Thompson scrimmages with the Bahamas national team during their training camp in Houston.
• ESPN ranks Warriors 18th in their early NBA Power Rankings.
• Jeff Van Gundy officially joins the Clippers as the team’s lead assistant, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.

Golden State Warriors guard Klay Thompson has been in the spotlight lately due to his highly publicized free agency. Although his future with the Warriors remains unknown, there is at least one team he can identify with for now: the Bahamas National team.

On Tuesday, Thompson was seen scrimmaging with the team alongside several other NBA players during their Houston training camp.

Thompson gets his Bahamian background from his father, former NBA champion Mychal Thompson, who was born and raised in the Bahamas. While Thompson participates in the Bahamian team’s training camp, it’s important to note that he may not be eligible to play for them during the 2024 Olympic Qualifiers, as outlined by a recent article from The Athletic.

Via The Athletic:

Thompson, who won a gold medal with Team USA in 2016, would need to receive an official release from USA Basketball and approval from FIBA in order to be cleared to play in the Olympic qualifiers and further competition for Team Bahamas, which isn’t expected to happen.

Regardless of his eligibility, it’s nice to see Thompson step away from the drama of his free agency and do what he loves the most with some offseason hoops.

For more on this and other news around the NBA, here is our latest news round-up for Wednesday, June 19th:

Warriors News:

Klay Thompson scrimmages with Bahamas National Team

Windhorst downplays concerns over Klay’s negotiations with Warriors | NBC Sports Bay Area

“I will say a few years ago this happened with Andre Iguodala,” Windhorst recalled. “They won a couple of championships with Iguodala and he was a free agent and he wanted to get taken care of and basically, he wanted to be overpaid. And he took like a free-agent tour and I remember Steve Kerr telling the story that when the Warriors actually went in to meet with him in his board room that Iguodala had left like knick-knacks and pamphlets and brochures from other teams, like ‘just so you know this isn’t my first meeting.’

“Iguodala did that and acted like he was going to go to the Rockets who were their arch nemesis at the time and at the end of the day he got re-signed. And he was sort of at the same stage of his career as Klay is. I agree it doesn’t look good but I would also say don’t misjudge a negotiation as a statement of finality.”

NBA Power Rankings, way-too-early edition: Our post-Finals look at all 30 teams’ 2024-25 | ESPN

18. Golden State Warriors

2023-24 record: 46-36

Result: Eliminated in play-in tournament

2024 draft pick: No. 52 (via MIL)

The biggest question for the Warriors’ offseason is all about Klay Thompson’s free agency. How and when that domino falls will inform a lot of Golden State’s other decisions. It’s also worth keeping an eye on veteran Chris Paul, who is on a non-guaranteed $30 million contract for the 2024-25 NBA season. Will the Warriors want to lean more into veteran experience or continue to infuse their group with youth? The dust will settle once Thompson makes his move. — Andrews

Leandro Barbosa on “tough situation” Klay Thompson faces in NBA free agency | NBC Sports Bay Area

Warriors’ Jonathan Kuminga continues his offseason workouts

NBA News:

Celtics are built to thrive in NBA’s new cap era … at least for a little while | The Athletic

Fortunately for Boston, it will take a while for free agency to do much to its roster. The Celtics are Team Contract Extension and have prepared themselves well for the upcoming era by locking up most of their best players. Six Celtics are on extensions signed with Boston after they arrived; deals for Brown, Jrue Holiday and Payton Pritchard have each signed through 2028.

Expect that trend to continue. In addition to Tatum, I’m hearing it’s very likely that Sam Hauser and Derrick White will join them. Hauser has one year left for the minimum, on a team option, and will be extension-eligible this summer; he’s about to get more expensive, but Boston sees him as a keeper. One possible cap shenanigan would be to decline Hauser’s team option for 2024-25 and re-sign him for lower money and more years than in an extension that started in 2025-26. Doing so would increase the Celtics’ tax penalty in 2024-25 but lessen the impact of the repeater penalty and manage the second apron in the out years.

Sources: Jeff Van Gundy agrees to be Clippers’ lead assistant | ESPN

Van Gundy is considered one of the finest minds in basketball and had been pursued for years to return to coaching on a full-time basis. His relationship with Lue and the franchise’s fondness for Van Gundy played major parts in the Clippers’ ability to land him, sources said.

Knicks free agent OG Anunoby may ‘test the market’ according to ESPN’s Brian Windhorst

In case you missed it at Golden State of Mind:

Warriors finish first in NBA — in tax payments

They may not have gotten their money’s worth, but you can’t say that Golden State’s ownership group got cheap. The Warriors have now paid out over $678M in luxury taxes in the Joe Lacob/Peter Guber era, easily the most in the NBA history. The second-place Los Angeles Clippers are more than a quarter billion behind with payments just over $400 million. The team has been paying extra tax due to their status as “repeaters,” which ups a team’s luxury tax rate when they’re over the luxury tax in multiple years.