Klay Thompson has a strained hamstring and is likely to be listed as questionable for Wednesday’s Game 3 of the NBA Finals, per The Athletic’s Shams Charania. The long Finals layoffs are helping the Warriors maintain hope their best players can be active, as Kevin Durant also works back from injury. But it’s worth thinking about what state the Warriors will be in back at home on Wednesday if Durant isn’t yet ready and if Thompson can’t go.
O Splash Brother, where art thou? Klay Thompson injury looms large
We have that and more in Tuesday’s NBA newsletter.
Photo by Kyle Terada - Pool/Getty Images
Thompson is the one key cog of the Warriors we’ve never really seen the Warriors without. Draymond Green has been an ironman, but famously missed Game 5 of the 2016 NBA Finals due to suspension. We know how that turned out. Green also missed 16 games during the regular season. The Warriors have some familiarity playing without him. Durant and Stephen Curry, of course, have missed time, and Curry has gone through a couple postseasons pretty banged up.
Thompson, though, hasn’t ever missed a playoff game and has missed fewer than 10 games every regular season he’s been in the league. The Warriors have never really had to be without the junior Splash Brother for any significant game. If he misses Game 3, this will be relatively new territory for Golden State.
How will it go? How will the absence of Thompson’s gravity affect that of Curry? We got a hint at the end of Game 2: the Raptors pulled out the box-and-one to focus attention on Curry and dare the other Warriors to beat them. Andre Iguodala took that dare for the win, but Golden State’s offense did suffer mightily without Thompson. In fact, Curry didn’t score a field goal once Thompson went out with his injury.
The Warriors, of course, can win without Thompson and Durant. They have Curry, the best shooter and one of the best scorers of all-time. Green is a superlative playmaker, and DeMarcus Cousins showed signs he is still himself under the rust and post-injury caution. But it sure will be interesting to see how a potential absence of Thompson will change everything the Warriors, if the ironman has to sit one out.
Owned
TMZ Sports notes that several NBA franchises have stopped calling the person who owns the biggest piece of equity in the enterprise the “owner” owing to the incredible weirdness of calling people “owners” of entities synonymous with people in the Year of Our Lord 2019. You may recognize that I have tried to move away from the word for the last eight years or so, using “franchisee” or “majority partner” or “franchise owner” more frequently. Draymond Green also pointed out the discomforting connotations on The Shop a few months ago. I’m guessing that has more to do with the shift than I do!
It’s not about being PC for the sake of being PC. It’s about power dynamics, association of labels, and historical racism in this country. Words have meaning, so let’s use the right ones. If an inarticulate catch-all term indicates that a very wealthy person “owns” less wealthy people, we should find a better term. When 28 of the 30 very wealthy people are white and the majority of the labor pool is black, given the historical relationship of white and black populations in this country, we should be especially cognizant of the connotations of the descriptive words we use.
Links
This piece on college-era Kawhi Leonard is itself worth the price of a subscription to The Athletic. The dude used to just say “no” or “nope” when people tried to score on him, and frequently said “board man” or “board man gets paid” when nabbing a rebound. And now his official NBA nickname is Board Man Gets Paid. This is how this works.
All hail DeMarcus Cousins, who finally had his playoff moment. Couldn’t be happier for the big guy.
How Stephen Curry destroys defenses by being the best small screener in the league.
The reception President Barack Obama received at Game 2 in Toronto wasn’t exactly surprising — crowds at NBA games love Obama — but it was still rather notable! Sell your franchise to Obama, Reinsdorf!
Reminder: OutSports Pride is this weekend in Los Angeles. Three LGBTQ+ Olympians will share their stories.
Be excellent to each other.
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