On April 9th, the Dallas Mavericks hosted the Los Angeles Lakers in a game everyone was watching. Luka Doncic was returning for his first game in Dallas since he was shockingly and unceremoniously traded away in February.
Doncic was emotional before the game but then showed up in a big way, dropping 45 points, including seven triples, as he eviscerated the Mavericks' defense. Dallas was playing without Kyrie Irving, who is out for the season with a torn ACL, and needed someone to step up.
Anthony Davis is the centerpiece star, the primary return from the Doncic trade and a Top-20 player at worst -- but he is not a shot creator. He never has been. He needs to be set up to be maximized on offense. The Lakers swarmed Davis, limiting his shot attempts and not allowing him to get comfortable.
The Mavericks needed someone to step up. That someone should have been Klay Thompson, their major offseason acquisition who was billed as the next star to join Kyrie Irving and Luka Doncic (ouch) and propel them back to the NBA Finals.
Thompson was not up to the task against the Lakers. He scored just six points, shooting 2-for-7 from deep and missing his only 2-point attempt. Naji Marshall took 14 shot attempts; P.J. Washington took 12. Klay could only muster eight attempts, six points, and a single assist.
For the season it has been more of the same. Klay is averaging 14 points per game, his lowest since his rookie season by a significant amount. His volume on both 2-point shots and 3-point shots is down, and he is shooting just 44.8 percent from 2-point range.
Now 35 years old, Klay Thompson is losing some of his ability to create his own shot or get free to score inside. He is taking a career-high 63 percent of his shots from 3-point range; he can't do much of anything else at this point. The Mavericks desperately need someone to step up and create offense -- and Klay cannot do it.
And Golden State Warriors fans could have told Dallas that was going to happen.
Klay Thompson is not a shot creator - and Warriors fans know it
There was a time when Klay Thompson was exploring the studio space and trying to create his own offense. That passed fairly quickly, as Klay settled into his role as a dependent offensive player. And he positively thrived, with over 90 percent of his 3-pointers and 70 percent of his 2-pointers assisted, per PBP Stats.
Warriors fans can tell you -- the worst moments of the Klay Thompson experience were when he tried to take the ball and do something with it. The worst handful of shots in his shot diet were self created, and by the end it led to lost games and public benchings. As much as Thompson wants to be able to create like Stephen Curry, he just doesn't have that gift.
Klay likely knows this, too. He once scored 60 points, his career-high in points, and yet only took 11 dribbles. His best moments come when he allows the ball to come to him and he doesn't try to make something happen. Yet for that to be possible, he has to be playing alongside teammates who can create offense, draw the defense, and then find Thompson with the pass to put him in position to shoot.
That was why he was the perfect fit alongside Curry -- who drew the offense's attention -- and Draymond Green, who could dime him up. That sort of offense is just not present in Dallas, not after Luka Doncic was shipped out of town, and certainly not with Kyrie Irving sidelined due to injury.
This will matter when the Mavericks compete in the Play-In Tournament on Wednesday night, but it will also matter next season. Irving is unlikely to play for at least the first few months of the year, if not the entire season. If Dallas hopes to do anything next season they will need to find shot creation.
They can't rely on Klay to "bounce back" and provide that; it has never been in his bag, and it's even less so now that he is older. The Warriors tried to never rely on Thompson in such a role, and the few times they did it did not go well -- just as it is not going well in Dallas.
Thompson is still a knockdown shooter, and he has something to contribute -- but the Mavericks have to head into the offseason knowing this team needs a perimeter creator, someone who can draw the defense and pass the ball. That's not Naji Marshall, that's not Anthony Davis, and it's not Spencer Dinwiddie.
If they fail in that quest, then they are getting the worst out of Klay Thompson. And their decision to trade Luka Doncic will only look more foolish.
The Warriors know that you take a weapon like Klay Thompson and you use him in a specific way. The Mavericks continue to make poor decisions with their roster, and they are doing Klay Thompson wrong with the team surrounding him.
