Anthony SlaterTim MacMahonCloseTim MacMahonESPN Staff WriterJoined ESPNDallas.com in September 2009Covers the Dallas Cowboys and Dallas MavericksAppears regularly on ESPN Dallas 103.3 FMFollow on XDec 18, 2025, 07:00 AM ET
play0:18Thompson leaves arena on crutchesKlay Thompson walks with the help of crutches and his left knee wrapped up after leaving Game 6 due to injury.
play0:28Klay Thompson walks in to ovation from Warriors employeesBefore playing Golden State, Klay Thompson returns to Chase Center to an ovation from Warriors employees.
Relive Klay’s notable moments with the Warriors (2:37)Take a look back at Klay Thompson’s major moments during his time with the Warriors. (2:37)
Thompson leaves arena on crutchesKlay Thompson walks with the help of crutches and his left knee wrapped up after leaving Game 6 due to injury.
Klay Thompson walks with the help of crutches and his left knee wrapped up after leaving Game 6 due to injury.
Klay Thompson walks in to ovation from Warriors employeesBefore playing Golden State, Klay Thompson returns to Chase Center to an ovation from Warriors employees.
Before playing Golden State, Klay Thompson returns to Chase Center to an ovation from Warriors employees.
WHENEVER STEPHEN CURRY watches a Dallas Mavericks game, he says it’s a “natural instinct” for his eyes to follow Klay Thompson around the court.
They flipped on the Mavericks game against the Utah Jazz. Curry roared after Thompson hit two of his four 3s — “Shoot it, Klay!” he yelled — early in the fourth quarter, sparking Canon’s curiosity.
“Those are the moments it hits,” Curry said. “Things have evolved in life. But there are reminders of how special of a thing it was and also a reminder of how unfortunate … the reality of what it is right now.”
Curry, Thompson and Draymond Green once discussed the dream of riding it out together with the Warriors, where they won four NBA titles. When Green sees social media or television graphics referring to him and Curry as the league’s longest-tenured duo, he shakes his head.
But circumstances change. Injuries altered Thompson’s career. The ACL and Achilles tears in 2019 and 2020, respectively, stripped away NBA basketball from him for 941 days. He returned and helped Golden State win a title in 2022, but the ramifications set in motion his eventual departure.
“This was a guy who felt he left it all out there for [team owner] Joe [Lacob] and the organization, and was then viewed as damaged goods,” one league source said.
Thompson is midway through his second season with the Mavericks, who last season traded Luka Doncic, the player Thompson most wanted to join. They’re currently out of the Western Conference postseason picture and the Warriors, at 13-14, aren’t too much further ahead, having stumbled because of injuries, age and simmering discontent.
Curry decided far in advance that he’d spend the night before this matchup at Thompson’s house and helped organize a dinner that included Green, assistant coach Chris DeMarco and Thompson’s friends. Thompson sent him the address. He ordered an Uber for both Green and himself to get there.
The mood was light. Thompson broke out the chessboard and Binho, a tabletop soccer game. Curry gravitated toward the putting green. They competed. They caught up. Thompson showed them his favorite nearby bike route.
“We didn’t need to address any feelings or his departure or anything like that,” Green said. “It was friends kicking it. He’s showing us, ‘Yeah, this is my life here.’
They hung out at Thompson’s house “deep into the night,” Curry said, and left with a renewed appreciation of all they’d accomplished regardless of how abrupt and frosty the exit might have been.
“You don’t spend 12 years with your friends and then that just fades,” Thompson said. “That was a really fun moment of last season, [which] was pretty up and down.”
“The idea that he is carrying the Warrior success no matter what jersey he has on, I do like that part of it,” Curry said. “But I don’t like people taking shots at him when he doesn’t have that coverage and he doesn’t have his guys with him.”
It hit Green similarly. Two nights later, he saw a clip of Thompson getting into it with a Miami Heat rookie, reminding Myron Gardner he couldn’t “sit at my table.” Green could only watch through a phone.
Thompson scored 17 points, intercepted a Green pass early in the fourth quarter and blocked a Curry floater in crunch time. The Mavericks won 111-107.
There was a retaliatory nature to it. Three months earlier, in Thompson’s first game against the Warriors, Curry made a dagger 3 in the closing moments and yelled to the camera what appeared to be: “You better stay here!”
“That’s why we won championships together,” Green said. “We all got that side to us. You don’t win at the rate we did if you don’t got that.”
“That was my way of expressing how much this place means to me,” he said. “And how much I want to only be here.”
One month later, the franchise gave Thompson a five-year max contract extension, a pledge of loyalty that eventually became a point of contention between him and management, league sources said.
That set the stage for contentious extension negotiations in the summer of 2023 that went nowhere and an angsty contract season with the Warriors in 2023-24, which included a midseason demotion to the bench and several behind-the-scenes blowups from Thompson after certain coaching decisions.
“When I was in the Bay, when I put that No. 11 jersey on, I think any performer would tell you, any athlete, that you hold yourself to a certain standard,” a reflective Thompson told ESPN this month. “When you’ve broken records, when you’ve set records, when you’ve experienced the highest peaks the sport can offer — and you think that’s just the normal — I was always searching for that in Golden State.”
The Warriors maintain that they offered Thompson a two-year, $48 million extension in the summer of 2023, though Thompson’s side never believed it was as genuine or tangible as portrayed. In the lead-up to free agency in 2024, there was minimal communication between Thompson and the Warriors. He played golf with Lacob, but the topic wasn’t broached.
The Warriors aggressively pursued free agent Paul George and told Thompson he’d have to wait until other business was settled. An offer was never made. Thompson took it as a hint that he was a distant part of their plans.
Feeling deprioritized, he started to search elsewhere, lining up the Lakers and Mavericks as possible landing spots. Thompson made the ultimate choice to leave, but sources around Thompson said he felt pushed out in a strategic manner.
Lacob sent Thompson a thread of his favorite pictures and moments from his career after he decided to leave. Lacob immediately announced that the Warriors planned to retire his No. 11 jersey and the organization put on a memorable celebration for Thompson in his first return game.
“People kind of understand from both sides some of the issues that, yeah, kind of happened,” Lacob said days before Thompson’s November 2024 return. “But I do think everyone still loves the history. You can’t take away what he meant to the franchise. Honestly, to me as an owner — very, very important. He’s the first guy we ever drafted. I’m not just saying this. I really did feel like he was a son. … Regardless of anything — how it ended, didn’t end. Whatever. That doesn’t matter.”
Thompson opted for Dallas and the Warriors worked it into a sign-and-trade, which got him a bit more money. But he didn’t love how management tried to squeeze Dallas at the end for extra value, league sources said.
“It’s all good, my man,” Thompson said. “I’m still trying to win. I don’t even — what they do doesn’t even concern me. I still got my eyes tight. I still got my eyes set on the goal, and that’s to give myself the best chance to win again. So whatever they do, whatever transactions they make in business, has no bearing on how I feel.”
Though his relationship with his long-time former teammates remains sturdy, his feelings toward management are still a bit cold.
SITTING AT HIS stall in the FedExForum visitors locker room after the Mavericks were eliminated in last season’s final Western Conference play-in game, Thompson sighed deeply and dropped his head when he heard the question.
If he knew in the summer how much change would be made in Dallas, would he have still signed with the Mavs?
“Don’t do this to me. Don’t do that to me. Don’t do that,” said Thompson, who turned down more money from the Los Angeles Lakers because he believed Dallas presented his best chance to win another championship.
“That’s kind of a ridiculous question because I don’t own a time machine and don’t believe in going back or looking back. If I did that my whole career, I would not be where I’m at, and I wouldn’t have been able to persevere through two really hard injuries. So, I’m here in Dallas, and I enjoyed my time, and I’m looking forward to the future.”
Thompson reported to training camp in Vancouver, British Columbia, this fall with renewed optimism. He spent the summer preparing for a season instead of figuring out his free agency destination. His personal life was bliss with his relationship with rapper Megan Thee Stallion, which had recently become Instagram official.
“That always makes things a little better, being in love,” Thompson said after one practice at Simon Fraser University.
At that point, Thompson believed the Mavericks could contend for a title with No. 1 draft pick Cooper Flagg joining the core.
The optimism didn’t last long, as Dallas got off to a disastrous start amid lingering fan outrage stemming from the Feb. 2 trade that sent Doncic to the Lakers, eventually resulting in general manager Nico Harrison’s firing on Nov. 11.
Thompson, who had struggled mightily in a starting lineup that featured Flagg at point guard and sorely lacked shot creation, had lost his starting job after seven games. He was pulled from the lineup after shooting only 31.8% from the field, including 26.2% from 3-point range, with Dallas ranking last in offensive efficiency.