It must be nice to be Klay Thompson. In his prime, he was a major part of four title-winning teams and is going to go down as one of the greatest shooters in basketball history. He goes on fun vacations, dates Megan Thee Stallion, and generally just seems to really enjoy his life. It’s a charmed existence, but for some reason, Klay has been dealing with more than his share of nonsense lately.
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Disrespectful younger players without a fraction of his success are coming at him. First it was Ja Morant, who got in Klay’s face after a game two weeks ago.
Ja was in street clothes that game as he dealt with yet another injury, and Klay put him in his place after the game the same way a wise old hound would quiet a yappy puppy. Ja is nowhere near Klay’s level, but at least he’s done a few things in the NBA. The same can’t be said of Heat rookie Myron Gardner, who called Klay a bum two nights after his run-in with the former No. 2 overall pick.
The Mavs and Heat met again last night, and Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson of the All the Smoke podcast shouted out Heat assistant Caron Butler for trying to instil some class in his player. In a teaching moment earlier in the day, Butler had brought Gardner up to Klay and made him apologize for getting out of line.
“Caron Butler, someone we played with and against, to me, although he’s a coach, this is what the f***** NBA is missing right now, is these vets,” Barnes said. “He brought this young boy back out to apologize to Klay, and it looked like Klay didn’t really even want no part of it, but I think out of respect for Caron, Klay listened.”
“It’s s*** that’s not needed,” he continued. “And if you’re a young player like Gardner who is a two-way player, averaging two points, this m********* doesn’t even know if he’s gonna be in the NBA next year, I think instead of trying to be a funny guy and disrespecting one of the greatest shooters of all time and a first-ballot Hall-of-Famer,” Barnes pointed out.
“I think that’s the problem with this generation and the climate as a whole, it’s much easier and more welcome to show disrespect than to show love,” he rest his case.
There’s often a disconnect between the old heads and the current crop of players, but Barnes isn’t someone who last played back in the ’80s. He was in the league recently, so for him to be calling this out means it must have been a really bad situation. What’s worse is that Klay is one of the most unassuming, down-to-earth guys in the league.
Maybe that’s why some players are trying to pick on him, but they’re only making themselves look terrible in the process. Klay’s success speaks for itself, but if it comes down to it, he can also put these guys in his place with an eloquent takedown, as he did with Ja.
Stephen Jackson drew a distinction between talking trash and being disrespectful, using an example of how he once trash-talked Vernon Maxwell (who was a guest on this episode), but didn’t cross the line by demeaning him.
“Yeah I was talking s***, I was confident, but I knew who I was talking to, too,” he said. “I wasn’t gonna take it to the point where it was disrespectful.”
Though players like LeBron James have defied the aging curve, the league as a whole has gotten younger on average through the years. Barnes is on to something that the NBA needs more vets, whether they’re still playing or coaching, to keep these young guys in line, because the disrespect is uncalled for and ridiculous.
One days these guys will get old, too, only they won’t have a shadow of the career that someone like Klay has had.
