Klay Thompson asked Stephen Curry not to pressure Warriors into keeping him, per report

Thompson wanted Golden State to want him back on the strength of his own merits

By Brad Botkin Jul 2, 2024 at 5:45 pm ET• 3 min read

After a Hall-of-Fame 13-year run that resulted in four championships, five All-Star selections and six Finals appearances, Klay Thompson has left the Golden State Warriors to join the Dallas Mavericks on a reported three-year, $50 million contract. 

The departure of a franchise icon brings to a close what became a relatively rocky separation. After tearing his ACL and Achilles tendon in consecutive summers, Thompson hasn't been the same player since, even after playing a key role in the Warriors winning the 2022 title in his first season back. 

Thompson was, at that point, in the third season of a five-year, $189 million contract that Golden State had signed him to, knowing he would miss the entire 2019-20 season. The Warriors didn't know he would miss the next season, too. They wound up paying him in the ballpark of $70M over two seasons in which he did not play a single game. 

Over the last three years, Thompson watched the Warriors sign Jordan Poole to a $123M extension and Draymond Green to a four-year, $100M deal last summer. It was reported prior to this past season that a two-year, $48M extension was offered to Thompson, though The Athletic's Anthony Slater indicated that [the Warriors and Thompson] have differing versions of the firmness of the offer and, again, the true desire of the franchise's lead decision-makers in valuing him as a can't-lose member of the core."