Golden State Warriors: Klay Thompson’s best a sight to behold

The Golden State Warriors are a team loaded with offensive talent, and yet none may be as potent as a fully automated Klay Thompson.

Normally such a consistent offensive presence, Klay Thompson had gotten off to a strangely underwhelming beginning to the 2018-19 season. A career 41.8 percent shooter from 3-point land, he’d fail to surpass the 37 percent mark in each of the first three months of the season.

Due to the offensive potency the Golden State Warriors possess, Klay’s struggles were minimized to some degree. After all, this was the great Klay Thompson we were talking about, and the Dubs have gone through many hardships during their championship runs only to come out victorious in the end.

It was only a matter of time before Thompson rediscovered his stroke, and that time has certainly come in the new year. Over the course of nine January games, the former 3-point champion is averaging 26.8 points per game on a scorching 50.6 percent from beyond the arc, highlighted by his most recent shooting outburst.

On the day in which we celebrated the life of Martin Luther King Jr., Thompson would go on to hit his first 10 shots from distance — tying the NBA record — and finish with 44 points in less than 30 minutes in a 19-point thrashing of the Los Angeles Lakers.

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Despite sharing the court with two of the most dangerous offensive threats this game has ever seen, it’s Thompson who has proven the ability to get the hottest of them all. His track record includes a number of games like the one in L.A., with a bundle of points scored in a minimal amount of minutes with an unfathomable amount of dribbles.

You would think the guy who touches the ball probably the least out of his star teammates would have a hard time scoring in bunches, what with the exhibition James Harden is putting on every night as the sole offensive weapon for his team, but Klay is a different brand of player, constantly in motion, always hunting for his next look from outside.

To say he needs just an inch of space to get a shot off feels like an understatement. With his shooting stroke ingrained into both his mind and body, Thompson could probably fire away with his eyes closed and still hit nothing but net.

When he happens to find himself in a rhythm early on, guys like Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant will have no problem constantly feeding him the rock, even if it means turning down great shots of their own.

In March of 2017, The Ringer posted an article debating who among current NBA players could break the unbreakable 100-point game set by Wilt Chamberlain back in 1962.

The usual suspects were all entertained: LeBron James, Curry, Durant etc. But the winner of this hypothetical? Klay Thompson, and when you think about it, that conclusion really isn’t so crazy.

He’s definitely not the best player in the league today, but nobody can score quicker than Thompson on any given night. This is a guy who dropped both 50 and 60 points in less than 30 minutes of action, as well as a record 37 points in a single quarter. We’d love to see what he could do if Steve Kerr let him play in the final frame of these blowout matches.

During most games, it’s the flashy greatness of both Curry and Durant that will shine brightest. It’s nights like Monday, though, where the NBA world is reminded of the full power Golden State possesses, the true greatness Klay Thompson has at his fingertips and how much fun it is to watch when he fully unleashes it.