- Klay Thompson and Stephen Curry have formed the greatest shooting backcourt in NBA history
- While the two are very close now, Klay revealed they never spoke during his rookie season
- They only developed a relationship after Thompson’s third season in the league
Klay Thompson and Stephen Curry have been teammates for 12 seasons now on the Golden State Warriors, and the two of them get along fantastically well. They are great friends off the court and on it, won four championships together.
You could make a case they are the greatest backcourt ever, but for two men who are so close now, they had no relationship for a few years. During Thompson’s appearance on Podcast P, he revealed that the two of them didn’t even speak during his rookie season after he joined the Warriors as the 11th pick of the 2011 NBA Draft.
“I don’t think me and Steph said a word to each other the first year, to be honest,” Thompson said. “Steph only played like 20 games that year, I was riding the bench first 30 games of the year, I’ll get in, I was a shooter off the bench backing up Monta (Ellis) and Dorrell (Wright) and stuff.
“I don’t even have that many stories about Steph from my rookie year because we didn’t really speak to each other that much,” Thompson continued. “I was so quiet. When you’re a rookie, you don’t want to step on the vets’ toes. I was like the anti-Draymond (Green), Draymond came in he was just yapping the whole time, he was making his presence felt. I was just kind of in the background like I’mma do my work, be the quiet assassin, and just observe.”
(starts at 50:48 mark):
Considering Curry wasn’t exactly a vocal leader in the locker room, it perhaps shouldn’t be all that surprising that he and a quiet rookie in Klay didn’t really speak. Steph was also dealing with right ankle and foot injuries, which led to him only playing 26 games in that lockout-shortened 2011-12 campaign. He’d have spent a lot of time away from the team during his rehab.
Klay Thompson Spoke About How They Developed A Relationship
By his second season, Klay had become a full-time starter on the Warriors, but he and Curry still didn’t really have a relationship. Klay revealed it ultimately took the two of them heading to the Canary Islands for the 2014 FIBA World Cup, for them to finally start bonding.
“Our relationship really didn’t really build until our third year when we played with Team USA,” Thompson said. “We finally hung out off the court because we had nothing else to do. Where were we, like (the) Canary Islands, we had nothing else to do so we went and played golf. We finally got to know each other on the golf course and that’s where I learned like, ‘Oh man, this dude’s a two-sport athlete.'”
Curry’s golf skills were apparent even back then, and he did win the ACC Celebrity Golf Championship recently. We often hear about players forming friendships while they’re with Team USA, but this might be the rare case of teammates developing a relationship while on national team duty.
As it’s said though, it’s not about how you start but how you finish, and the 33-year-old Thompson is hoping to win more championships with Curry. The three-time All-Star struggled in the 2023 playoffs, with averages of 18.5 points, 4.2 rebounds, 2.2 assists, 0.5 steals, and 0.3 blocks per game, and will be looking to make amends for it next season.
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