With Kevin Durant joining the Golden State Warriors this offseason, it’s natural to wonder how Durant, Steph Curry, and Klay Thompson will all play together.
We of course it assume it will work out just fine and that the team will steamroll the rest of the league (in the regular season, at least), but players that are used to putting up 20+ points a night and being the go-to scorers can sometimes have a difficult time maintaining their game — or adjusting it — once similarly skilled players wind up alongside them. Durant, Curry, and Thompson are all unbelievable shooters that do much of their scoring on the perimeter. There is only so much scoring — although this team may stretch the limits of that — and shooting to go around.
So, The Vertical’s Shams Charania asked Thompson if he will look to change his game at all with Durant joining the team. And Thompson made it clear that no, he does not plan to do that:
When Thompson looks back on his visit to Durant in the Hamptons before Fourth of July weekend, a clear message resonated: Every championship roster has players sacrificing. Their individual games didn’t.
“I feel kind of disrespected that people keep using the term sacrifice to describe me and describe us,” Thompson told The Vertical. “We all want to see each other do well. But I’m not sacrificing [expletive], because my game isn’t changing. I’m still going to try to get buckets, hit shots, come off screens. I want to win and have a fun time every game we play.
Durant agreed that Thompson should not change his game, saying, “We want Klay to stay Klay”:
“We want Klay to stay Klay,” Durant told The Vertical. “We don’t want him to change. The games dictate where the shots come from. I may shoot 12 shots one night; Klay may shoot eight or nine shots one night, and Steph may shoot 25 shots one night. And it could be a different flow another night.”
Thompson talked about the moment he learned Durant had chosen the Warriors:
“I was sleeping,” Thompson told The Vertical, “and my brother came to my room and woke me up to tell me that KD committed. I didn’t believe it at first when he told me, so I had to check my phone and verify it. I was like, ‘Seriously? KD really chose us?’ It was an incredible moment for our organization, and I was psyched. We had the final form of our team.
“And then I went back to sleep.”
It will be interesting to watch it all play out, but there’s just so much damn talent here and these guys all understand each other’s games. There may be an adjustment period next season, but look for these guys to be playing like the superstars they are together before long. It will be an absolute nightmare for opposing teams to try to stop.
