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Yardbarker
Mark Cuban thinks Klay Thompson's life will be 'a lot easier' with Mavericks
By Sean Keane,
2 hours ago
Klay Thompson
Mark Cuban and the Dallas Mavericks worked hard to land Klay Thompson this summer. The Mavericks owner thinks Thompson won't have to work nearly as hard on his new team.
While appearing on the "Roommates Show" with Josh Hart and former Maverick Jalen Brunson, Cuban spoke about how the Mavericks prioritized adding offense this summer, since during the Finals, "There were times when we just couldn't score."
The biggest move in that direction was working a sign-and-trade with the Golden State Warriors to add veteran shooter Klay Thompson, the man who has made the sixth-most three-pointers in NBA history.
Cuban posited that Thompson would thrive alongside Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving in Dallas, even though he's leaving Steph Curry behind in San Francisco.
"At Golden State, [Thompson] had to always be on the move," Cuban told Brunson and Hart. "They had that motion offense where he was always coming off screens and running. We don't so that. Or not nearly as much."
It sounds like Dallas imagines Thompson spotting up far more often while awaiting passes from the Mavericks' All-Star duo. Cuban mentioned that teams need to "face guard" Thompson, which would allow the other Mavericks to effectively play four-on-four, with Thompson keeping a defender anchored in the corner.
In his prime, Thompson would regularly run around 2.5 miles over the course of a game. That slowed to 2.2 miles per game last season, still a lot of running. The 34-year-old Thompson, slowed by a torn ACL and torn Achilles tendon in the last five years, can probably appreciate the chance to stay put more often.
While he won't have to run around as many screens, all that running did lead to shooting opportunities. Is Thompson going to approach last season's 14.7 shots per game if the Mavericks aren't going to have him move around? The answer won't be clear until the regular season.
It's likely that Thompson can get more open shots than he did on last year's Warriors team, which was lacking in outside shooting beyond Curry. But the tradeoff is that those shots are probably coming at a much lower volume in Dallas, where Doncic and Irving combined to take over 43 attempts per game last season.
Back in 2016, when the Warriors signed Kevin Durant, Thompson famously scoffed at the idea he'd be taking fewer shots, telling Shams Charania , "I'm not sacrificing s---."
Now he'll almost certainly be sacrificing shots as the price of joining a title contender. His life may get easier, but standing in the corner might be tough on Thompson's pride.
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