He was a 3rd option most of the season and didn’t get half of the defensive attention guys like kemba got during the season. He had stretches during the regular season where he was invisible and his team still won.
LOL @ freaking Kemba Walker over Klay Thompson for the NBA team. Just because you are an alpha doesn't mean you are automatically the best player in the NBA. Do you all realize how much Alpha Thon Maker is? This dude grew up in South Sudan escaping from a freaking civil war. How would Kemba Walker or Westbrook react if you drop them in a war zone with explosions and bullets flying everywhere? I bet they would piss their pants or run crying so please, when it comes to being Alpha Thon Maker is probably the most alpha active player in the NBA. Does this mean Thon Maker deserves to be in the All NBA team? No? Then stop with this r****ded Alpha logic. It takes a lot of different types of players to make a basketball team saying only Alphas deserve to be in the All NBA is like saying only Quarterbacks deserve to be in the Pro Bowl. If you're scrub quarterback does that mean you are better than a HOF tightend like Gronk? Or how about a Wide Receiver like Megatron, you're saying a bust quarterback like Ryan Leaf is better just because quarterbacks are the core of the offense? Makes 0 sense and the lack of understanding in bball just shows the level of analytics in the league still isn't high enough. I blame it all on MJ, that dude was a statistical anomaly however his greatness skewed people's perception all these years and took him as the standard when he is the exception to the rule. There's a reason no one has ever been "like Mike" since MJ. Klay Thompson is one of the best 2nd/3rd bananas in the history of the NBA he deserves to be on the All NBA list as he does more for winning than somebody like Westbrick who just hogs all the stats to the detriment of his team. You take the guy who does more for winning than the guy who doesn't, simple as that. Everybody who is saying otherwise is just bitter AF pretty sure they would jump at the chance to add Klay to the Rockets.
I would like Klay playing alongside a Superstar like Harden but I wouldn’t want him to be the franchise player that we build around. We haven’t even seen Klay in a Kemba role where he is relied on night after night as the clear cut number 1 option surrounded by a poor supporting cast over the course of 82 games.
Did the Warriors owner bribe the media guys for this? seems like a smart move - "hey klay we want to pay you but we can't"
Seems crazy so many think a guy who is the 4th best player in his team got snubbed because a guy who was the number 1 option on a team with exactly zero other good players put up better numbers and was more important to his team?? We’ve taken the concept of “have to be on a good/great team” too far. I mean nobody believes the Celtics would have been worse off if they replaced Kyrie with Kemba do they? Kyrie was second team for some reason.
The question you ask yourself is if you were starting a team...where would you place Klay? If it was a fantasy draft with all of the players...I do think Westbrook and Kemba go higher than Klay. The former two can consistently create their shot through an 82 game season. WB and Kemba have flaws? Absolutely, but it's easier to find a 2nd all-star to cover their flaws than it would be for Klay. Klay cannot consistently create his own shot, he relies on movement and he benefits from playing with two amazing shooters that simply can't be left open. It would be interesting to see how Klay would do if you swapped him for Kemba. On a team with not many other shooters or playmakers.
If it were a fantasy statistics draft, yes. If you're building a franchise, you are equally f*cked - albeit in different ways - regardless of which of the 3 you have as your franchise player. Personally if I'm drafting, I still take Klay first and hope for a better cornerstone later. You can live with paying Klay the max first, would not hinder anyone's ability to build and could net a cornerstone in trade. There is no doubt that Klay can be the 2nd best player on a championship team. The same can't be said about the other 2. However, if I have WB on the max first, now whoever joins me is likely to perform worse and may butt heads with him. Kemba who knows, he's not really had a chance, but obviously he's more of a lead guard like WB. These are not cornerstones. I get what you're saying, but it's more applicable if we're talking about Klay Thompson vs Kawhi Leonard or something like that. Westbrook, Kyrie, Kemba, guys like that imo are not cornerstones and if you promise it to them you will have an expensive headache to manage a team with a hard ceiling >> unless they're paired with a Klay Thompson. WB can't win dominating the ball and can't play off the ball. Kemba hasn't done it.
It never ceases to amaze me how the Warriors (and especially their fans) want to have it all. They want recognition as a championship team ; They want recognition as elite individuals They want recognition for their selfless, beautiful style They want recognition for their assassins that just "take over" games Like, you have to see that there are obvious trade-offs here. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
Well, that's a good point. I guess I was thinking of it more as like a NBA2k franchise fantasy draft. I'd take Westbrook or Kemba before Klay and then hope to snag a good shooter like Middleton. Klay turns out to be one of the best three and D players of all time. I'm not knocking his game, it is what it is. It's like you wouldn't take Gobert or Ben Wallace or Mutumbo high in such a draft. They are amazing complimentary pieces for a championship team...but that first building block? Nah. They are/were souped up rim protectors... At the end of the day, Klay is a souped up 3 and D player who plays average at worst defense and one of the best three point shooters of all time. It's just that his skillset is not something you'd build a team out of...because imagine if you have Klay surrounded by meh players and a lesser coach? Like McHale? Klay is in the perfect situation right now and the only way I see him leaving is if Durant stays and this starts to get to him that he's not considered better than all these other SGs. Clippers would be perfect for him too, they have a team system he can slide right into, one of the best GMs of all time, and he gets to stay in California with all the instagram thots he loves to spend so much time with. I agree though that if you are starting a team with any of these three you are in trouble. I do think that it is fair that Klay gets punished for being the 3rd scorer for awards like this. The truth is that he can coast most of the season and guys like Kemba can't.
Exactly. Klay, Steph and Draymond should have realized by now that having a 4th All Star (ignoring Iggy) in Durant would harm any sort of individual accolades they may have received w/o him. Curry may have another MVP since so many media folks love him, or at least have another top 3 finish. Klay and Draymond have lost millions of dollars they’ll never be about to fully earn again. Congrats to GSW for the rings but they should’ve never expected to get everything, ESPECIALLY since they coasted 95% of the past two regular season. This summer will be fascinating to see how this situation shakes out. If GS lowballs Klay, especially now that they won’t need to pay ~$30M, he may be out of there.
This is the weirdest flex I've seen on CF, in a while. And that's saying something, because CF is CF. You have to realize that when people say "alpha" in basketball, they don't mean "alpha" in war situations...
There's a huge luxury of playing with 3 other stars, 2 of which can drop 40 on any given night. History will remember that adjust accordingly.
I love the sense of entitlement. The Warriors basicaly do the bare minimum during the regular season for the last 2 years but they should get the awards based on what they COULD have done, had they been really trying like it's the playoffs or had their role players not been afforded the luxury of being role players