Klay Thompson is coming off arguably the worst season of his NBA career, but he’s still expected to get plenty of interest once he hits free agency this offseason. On Monday, the basketball world got the first hints of that interest.
Shams Charania reported for The Athletic that Thompson and the Orlando Magic are showing “mutual interest” as the offseason rapidly approaches. The Magic were eliminated from the NBA playoffs on Sunday by the Cleveland Cavaliers, while Thompson’s season ended in the play-in tournament at the hands of the Sacramento Kings.
Thompson and the Magic have made sense as a pairing for a while now. The former All-NBA shooting guard is no longer the player he was and regularly hurt the Golden State Warriors’ chances to win throughout the 2023-’24 season. However, even in a down year by his standards, Thompson still shot 38.7% from three point range on 9.0 attempts per game.
That level of shooting would transform Orlando’s offense. The only Magic player anywhere near Thompson’s accuracy and attempts per game last season was Jalen Suggs, who made 39.7% of his 5.1 three point tries per game. The organization’s two stars, Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner, both shot below 34 percent from beyond the arc. The fact that the Magic managed to take the Cleveland Cavaliers to seven games in the opening round of this year’s postseason despite shooting 30.9% from three as a team throughout the series is, frankly, pretty remarkable.
The fit makes perfect sense. The question, of course, is whether Thompson would really leave the Warriors. He made $43.2 million this past season and will struggle to find any team willing to pay him that much going forward. From the sounds of reports like Charania’s, teams like Orlando will be willing to pay more than Golden State in order to steal Thompson away from the only team he’s ever known.
The choice, then, will likely come down to whether Thompson wants to stay in the Bay or get paid. As noted above the Magic will have oodles of cap space to utilize and could pay the four-time NBA champion quite a bit. Probably more than what his output calls for, but still worth it because the Magic need shooting and veteran leadership more than anything. But sometimes no amount of money can pry a player from his longtime home. Thompson may flirt with other teams in free agency in order to secure some leverage over the Warriors.
Free agency will not begin until July so there is plenty of time for things to change. But with the season over this feels like the first sign we’ve gotten that Thompson might truly leave the Warriors for a team like the Magic. Weird to imagine.
