Grading Klay Thompson's performance in Mavericks preseason debut

The Dallas Mavericks kicked off preseason action on Monday evening against the Memphis Grizzlies, though Dallas was missing nearly half of their roster in the contest due to a variety of reasons. The Mavericks got back Klay Thompson and Kyrie Irving for their second preseason contest tonight against the Utah Jazz in which they lost 107-102, as Thompson made his first official debut in a Mavericks uniform.

Even though it’s preseason, fans were eager to see Thompson take the court for Dallas for the first time, as Thompson drew heavy applause every time he scored despite the arena not being packed.

While it’s important that we don’t over-analyze Thompson’s preseason debut for obvious reasons, especially since Thompson only played in the first half for 18 minutes, it’s definitely fair to assess how well he played in this game since we’ve been pining to see how he’s going to fit in with this Mavericks team for months now.

Grading Klay Thompson's performance in Mavericks preseason debut

From the get-go, it looked like Thompson was trying to get out some jitters associated with making a debut for a brand new team for the first time in his career, as Thompson clanked a few wide-open mid-range shots to start the game. However, Thompson’s gravity that he draws as a shooter on offense was readily apparent from the second he got the ball, as opposing defenders bit on almost all of his pump-fakes off-the-catch.

Thompson finished with 10 points and three assists on 3-9 shooting from the field, though he canned 3-5 of his shots from downtown. Thompson displayed his willingness to pass up some open shots for a better shot on multiple occasions and showed his comfortability with center Dereck Lively II in the pick-and-roll.

Just like in Golden State, Dallas will be able to run some offense through Thompson because of his underrated passing ability as well as the fact that he can rise up and shoot from anywhere on the court, even though Thompson isn’t necessarily a dynamic ball handler.

After a few in-and-outs on multiple attempts, Thompson finally started to get his rhythm going in the second quarter, as all of his 3-pointers came in the second quarter. It’s only preseason, but Thompson looked like he was moving very well on the court, as he came flying off of pin-downs to get open for a few of his 3-pointers in the second quarter.

The 34-year-old’s conditioning translated over to the defensive end as well, as Thompson played elite on-ball defense in the contest and switched to guard multiple positions effectively. The Mavericks and Jason Kidd were tinkering with some zone defense throughout lots of the first half as well, and Thompson didn’t really suffer any lapses defensively when Dallas went to that.

Thompson being a defensive liability is something that was fans' biggest concern when he signed with Dallas given his injury history and sloping defense in Golden State, though Thompson was far from that on Thursday evening.

There’s still a lot more time in the season before we can properly evaluate Thompson’s defense and it will be interesting to see if the tread starts to burn off the tire on that end for Thompson as the season progresses, though all signs are point toward Thompson at least being above-average on that end this year. While Thompson’s elite shotmaking wasn’t on display in this contest, he did all the little things right and looked like he fit seamlessly into Dallas’ system in his debut, so he gets a B+ for his preseason debut.