Klay Thompson: Is He An All-Star This Year?
The Golden State Warriors cannot win a championship without Stephen Curry or without Andrew Bogut. But third on that list is Klay Thompson, the Dubs’ high scoring shooting guard who’s made good on his huge offseason extension this summer.
Averaging 21.0 points per game on a career-high 43.1 percent shooting from downtown, Thompson is the NBA’s 13th highest scorer. He’s shooting a 45.8 percent from the field and has increased his rebounds and assists to 3.5 and 3.2 per game, respectively. All of those represent career highs.
But in the loaded Western Conference, has Klay Thompson’s 2014-15 campaign been good enough for an All-Star spot?
To avoid building up unnecessary suspense, probably not.
For those of you unfamiliar with the NBA All-Star Game, here’s how the voting works for each team: Five starters (two guards and three frontcourt players) are voted in by the fans, while the remaining seven players (two guards, three frontcourt players and two wild cards) are selected by the head coaches.
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As a shooting guard, that means there are, at best, six spots available on the All-Star team. Two of them are taken by starters voted in by the fans. No offense to Thompson, but there’s no way he’s being voted in ahead of names like Steph Curry, Kobe Bryant, James Harden or Chris Paul.
That leaves four bench spots that Thompson could fill — two guards and two wildcards.
First of all, it’s worth noting that in the Western Conference, frontcourt players are going to fill a high number of All-Star slots. With guys like LaMarcus Aldridge, Anthony Davis, Marc Gasol, Blake Griffin, Dwight Howard, DeMarcus Cousins and Tim Duncan (not to mention slightly less deserving options like Kevin Durant, Dirk Nowitzki and Zach Randolph) all available for frontcourt spots, it’ll be hard for guards to fill up even one of those wild card spots.
Unfortunately for Thompson, even if both of those wild card spots go to guards instead of forwards or centers, there are still bigger names/better players at the guard position that either are more deserving or will get more votes from fans/coaches.
We’ve already mentioned top vote-getters like Curry, Kobe, Harden and CP3, but what about Russell Westbrook and Damian Lillard? Guys like Monta Ellis, Mike Conley, Rajon Rondo and Tony Parker might be in the conversation too. Including Klay Thompson, that’s a total of 11 guards in the conversation for 4-6 spots.
To put it simply, the problem isn’t that Thompson is undeserving of an All-Star spot. The problem is the Western Conference is so unbelievably loaded with talent that he might be an afterthought.
We all know the NBA is a popularity contest/lifetime achievement award. How else can we explain Kobe Bryant most likely getting the starting nod over James Harden for the second guard position? Thompson is becoming a household name as part of the “Splash Brothers,” but with so many spots going to bigger names, Thompson will need to be voted in by the coaches.
Thompson’s game has never been more well-rounded. He’s attacking the basket better than ever before, he’s no longer a black hole on the offensive end and he’s shooting the lights out from downtown. If he played in the Eastern Conference, there’s no question he’d earn an All-Star selection.
But since he plays in the West, Thompson missing the cut is a very realistic possibility.
Then again, this is all about perspective. Over the summer, Thompson became classified as “overrated” and his flaws were completely picked apart when A) the Dubs refused to include him in a trade for Kevin Love and B) he received a five-year, $70 million contract extension that many thought was vastly overpriced.
Just months later, Thompson has improved his flaws as one of the league’s best two-way guards and nobody’s calling him overrated or overpriced. For Golden State Warriors fans, the fact that we’re even including Klay Thompson in the All-Star conversation is a victory in and of itself.