Warriors’ Klay Thompson: ‘I wouldn’t want to go anywhere else’

Last updated: 2023/10/11 at 7:11 PM

BigP Published October 11, 2023

Klay Thompson is Golden State Warriors royalty, and the star wing wants to end his NBA career exactly where it began.

“I wouldn’t want to go anywhere else,” Thompson told The Athletic, discussing his looming free agency in an article that was posted Wednesday. “To play for one franchise, man? That’s so rare. In any sport. Football. Baseball. Basketball. Australian Rules Football. To play for one club is insane. It’s some real legendary stuff. Even what Udonis Haslem did. He’s revered in Miami. Locally. That’s what I cherish. Going around the country, going around the world and people from Northern California or Warriors fans in general are just so prideful about the Warriors.

“And I was here before banners were hung up. So in a way, it’s our baby. You want to ride it out. I’ve just been so lucky to be a part of this franchise. It’d be so hard to envision myself in another uniform.”

Thompson, 33, is entering the final season of a five-year, $190 million deal with the Warriors. He missed the first two and a half years of that contract due to a torn ACL, which he suffered in the 2019 NBA Finals, and then a ruptured Achilles tendon in 2020.

Last season, his first full season back from injury, Thompson averaged 21.9 points per game while shooting 43.6%/41.2%/87.9% across 69 regular-season games. The Warriors went 44-38, good for the 6-seed in the Western Conference. They defeated the Sacramento Kings in seven games in Round 1 before losing to the Los Angeles Lakers in six games in the semifinal round.

Thompson, who was drafted by Golden State in the first round of the 2011 NBA Draft, has started for all four Warriors championship teams in the Steve Kerr era (2015, 2017, 2018, 2022). Across his 10-year NBA career, Thompson has made five All-Star Game rosters, earned two All-NBA honors and one All-Defensive honor.

As for the upcoming season, the Warriors now have 12-time All-Star point guard Chris Paul, who was acquired from the Washington Wizards in a trade package centered around Jordan Poole, as well as veterans Rudy Gay, Cory Joseph and Dario Saric. They also re-signed lifelong Warrior Draymond Green to a four-year, $100 million deal. Star guard Stephen Curry is signed through the 2025-26 season.