Klay Thompson and the Dallas Mavericks are both at a crossroads and neither side seems sure which direction the other is heading.
Klay Thompson finished the worst season of his career Sunday night and he is not even sure he will be back to try to fix it.
After the Dallas Mavericks closed out a forgettable 26-56 campaign with a 149-128 win over the Chicago Bulls, Thompson was asked during exit interviews whether he expects to return next season.
"That's a hard hitter. I'm not sure," he said. "I mean, I am under contract, so I do, but I have definitely learned in my time in Dallas that things can change on a dime."
Thompson finished the night with 12 points on 4 of 10 shooting from 3-point range, adding a steal and an assist in just 10 minutes of play. It was a fitting close to what has been, statistically, the worst season of his career. The 36-year-old averaged just 11.7 points per game on 39.3 percent shooting from the field and 38.3 percent from 3-point range, career lows across the board, while logging a career-low 21.7 minutes per night and frequently coming off the bench.
When Thompson signed his three-year, $50 million deal with Dallas in 2024, the vision was clear: knock down wide-open 3-pointers alongside Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving and chase a fifth championship ring. None of that came to fruition. Doncic was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers. Irving tore his ACL and missed the entire season. Anthony Davis came and went. The Mavericks finished 26-56, one of the worst records in the NBA.
Thompson, always the professional, reflected on the deeper reality of life in the league.
"The hardest part about being an NBA player, they think they pay you for the records broken or the rings won," he said. "But it's really they pay you for being able to be traded."
And a trade may well be coming. With $17.4 million owed to Thompson in the final year of his deal, the fit in Dallas no longer makes sense on or off the court. Thompson is 36 and on the back end of his career, Flagg is 19 and just getting started. Those timelines do not align and that money could be far better spent on extending core pieces like Dereck Lively II, Max Christie, or Naji Marshall, all of whom are candidates for new deals this summer.
At 36, Thompson still has the shooting pedigree to help a contender. The ring chase is not over. It just almost certainly will not continue in Dallas.
