Report: Klay felt joining Lakers was too similar to re-joining Warriors

Report: Klay felt joining Lakers was too similar to re-joining Warriors originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

Klay Thompson needed a fresh start after spending 13 years with the Warriors, and the Dallas Mavericks offered that.

The Los Angeles Lakers, however, didn’t.

After it was reported that Thompson narrowed his free-agent decision down to the Mavericks and Lakers, many — including the sharpshooter’s father — wondered why he didn’t head to Hollywood. Well, the situation in Los Angeles reportedly appeared too similar to the one in San Francisco, in Thompson’s eyes.

“But something about playing for the Lakers apparently felt too much like playing for the Warriors,” ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne and Kendra Andrews reported in a feature story Wednesday. “As one source close to him put it, ‘Would this be trading one fishbowl for another?’

“All Thompson had talked about in the two weeks since he had decided and accepted that his time with the Warriors was over was wanting ‘new experiences’ and a ‘fresh start.’ Dallas seemed like a better place to get that.”

Thompson left Golden State after it embarrassingly missed the NBA playoffs for the first time with the trio of himself, Steph Curry and Draymond Green all healthy. Infamously, Thompson shot 0-for-10 in the Warriors’ season-ending NBA Play-In Tournament loss to the Sacramento Kings in April.

The Lakers, similarly sad, finished the 2023-24 regular season as the Western Conference’s No. 7 seed and were swept by the Denver Nuggets in the first round, a huge disappointment considering the hype a team with LeBron James, Anthony Davis, D’Angelo Russell and Austin Reaves receives on a nightly basis.

Would Thompson have been entering a similar situation with Los Angeles? Probably.

There is no telling what his role would be with the Lakers. Thompson very well could have found himself on the bench behind Reaves or Russell the same way he did behind then-Warriors rookie Brandin Podziemski. Or, Thompson might have been a starter.

Regardless, Thompson certainly would be under heavy scrutiny — much more than he was in the Bay — for the tiniest of…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/report-klay-felt-joining-lakers-225900246.html

Author : NBC Sports BayArea

Publish date : 2024-07-03 22:59:00

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