Klay Thompson didn’t hand Stephen Curry the title of closest teammate when he sat down on stream with PlaqueBoyMax. Instead, the four-time NBA champion pointed to Draymond Green, and his explanation made the choice pretty clear.
“I say Draymond just because we are the same age,” Klay said. “We went through everything together.
Steph is more like a big brother and role model to me because he’s two years older than me. He’s an incredible family man.
We’re the same age, and we’ve been through everything together,” Klay added. “We were teammates for 13 seasons, and we would hang out a lot off the court, play a lot of dominoes, he got on my boat.
But it’s probably Dray with Steph a close second.”
That answer says a lot about how Thompson viewed the Warriors’ run. Curry and Thompson were the shooting engine of the dynasty, the two stars who came up together and helped build one of the most dangerous backcourts the league has ever seen.
But in Thompson’s eyes, Curry filled a different lane. Green was the one who shared the most with him day to day, both on the floor and away from it.
Thompson also spent part of the stream talking through the injuries that changed his career path. Last season, he averaged 11.7 points, 2.1 rebounds, 1.4 assists, 0.5 steals, and 0.3 blocks per game, a far cry from the player he was before the injuries hit.
“ACL’s tough because you lose a lot of muscle mass in your quad. And then the comeback is a lot of single-leg squats, it’s a lot of squatting, it’s a lot of muscle atrophy,” said Thompson.
“But the Achilles is a whole different beast. Shout out to all the guys in the league who went through that.
It’s really a beast to come back from because you have to be in a cast for the first few months. Just like the quad, the muscle atrophy in your calf is crazy.
It’s so hard to build that up again, and it’s so tedious. You just have to do calf raises all day.
But with the technology now and the advances in medical science, you could come back.”
It was a blunt look at just how brutal the rehab grind can be. Thompson has been through enough to know the difference between surviving an injury and truly getting back to playing. The fact that he’s still in the league at all says plenty about the work he put in.
Where he goes next is still unsettled, but the old picture keeps coming back into view. After everything he’s fought through, the most fitting ending might still be the one that started it all: Thompson back with the Warriors, alongside Curry and the teammate he called his closest, Draymond Green.
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