Klay Thompson's Warriors demons just returned at the worst time in Dallas

The Dallas Mavericks’ home-opening loss to the San Antonio Spurs was extremely anticlimactic, with Victor Wembanyama spoiling Cooper Flagg’s debut by having a gaudy performance, but the Mavericks will quickly shift focus to their game this evening versus the Washington Wizards. This game will be a great opportunity for Dallas to get their feet back under them, as many players looked off-kilter in the first game versus San Antonio.

One of these players was none other than Klay Thompson, as Thompson finished with 10 points off 4-13 shooting from the field and 1-5 shooting from outside, also registering a plus-minus of -23 in only 22 minutes. While it seemed like Thompson had a great summer by all accounts, he never shot the ball at a high clip in any of Dallas’ preseason games, and he hasn’t looked like the same player fans saw toward the end of last season whatsoever.

Thompson wasn’t getting to the rim effectively in any capacity versus the Spurs, often settling for tough layups where he was unable to get the edge against opposing defenders, or shooting heavily contested long twos, and his perimeter defense was not up to par throughout most of the contest as well.

This would be a terrible time for Thompson to fall into a shooting slump

With as badly as the Mavericks need spacing in their starting lineup, they can’t afford for Thompson to let some of his past demons from the Golden State Warriors come back to bite him on this Mavericks team, as this squad isn’t built to survive that with how thin their shooting already is.

While Thompson had some stretches where he was more inconsistent than not last season for the Mavericks, he never had an absolutely horrific shooting slump, the likes of which he had in Golden State a few times toward the tail end of his tenure there. Of course, it’s still very early in the season, but Thompson’s shot hasn’t been going in at a high enough rate through five games of action, even if four of those games were in preseason.

Thompson has looked particularly rough when shooting off the move, as he doesn’t seem like he’s getting as much elevation on his jumper compared to last season so far. The Mavericks need Thompson to be more dynamic offensively, regardless of whether this is a fair request or not, even though Thompson is 35 years old.

Thompson turned it up a notch in terms of his off-dribble creation ability as well as getting to the dribble-handoffs last season after the Luka Doncic trade, and Dallas needs him to continue to be successful in these scenarios a few times a game instead of settling for toughly contested looks.

While it’s still just one game, Dallas’ guard play and shot creation with Kyrie Irving out of the lineup looked horrendous versus San Antonio, and the Mavericks will need all the help they can get when it comes to trying to string together a decent offense, making Thompson’s role more vital than ever, even though he originally joined this team as more of a completing piece in the summer of 2024.