How to cope with the Klay rumors + how real are the Denver, Dallas sign-&-trades?

[#DubNation Digest]

A former fellow reporter (TV producer, to be exact), who used to be on the beat of the Warriors with me, day in and day out at the old Oakland Marriott practice facility, recently DM’ed me on Instagram about all the Klay Thompson rumors. [Latest and greatest on Dallas and Denver below!]

This was my reply:

He wanted more than a two-year deal from the get-go (i.e., was offered $48M/2y at the beginning of last season), so he had to become a free agent to get that, so we’ll see what he gets by testing the market. It’s what you have to do when you play in the NBA. But also Joe Lacob wasn’t gonna just hand him three years after paying near half of Klay’s previous $190M extension with zero games played while rehabbing for two years 🤷🏻‍♂️ It’s nobody’s fault, although I can see why Klay would be emo, so hopefully Steve Kerr will calm them all down by June 30.

Side note: watching Kerr show love for Klay recently with Jim Rome had me feeling like Kerr better be a part of these negotiations. I really do hope they get a final meeting with Steve in the room: https://x.com/jimrome/status/1805690652115759488

I should add that, obviously, Klay bet on himself by passing on Lacob’s original offer. He even said at the beginning of last season that he could still be an All-Star (7:00 mark, see timestamps in the Description):

And that’s perfectly fine. That’s what you want to hear. Klay betting on himself and the pissy side of his personality is what makes him one of the best shooters to have ever walked the planet.

But I do wish he’d get over himself, especially as I interpret these “frozen” talks as basic venture capitalist deal negotiations (salut, Joe!) in a suddenly very restrictive salary cap environment (Google “second apron”). I don’t blame Klay, though, because even by human non-NBA standards, 34 years old is pretty young — men are not considered mature until age 43 (Google that, too!).

And, heck, the NBA has our modern version of gladiators. It’s competition at the highest level, 24/7. Yet, that’s all the more reason to add the skill of mentally putting aside that environment. Hint: this applies to every day life!

Btw here’s my livestream co-host Dean “of Positivity” Chambers with an optimistic “sermon” at the end of this video. I guarantee you, it’ll make you feel better. Dean’s voice is right up there with Steve’s, for me:

Here are some of the latest and greatest meta developments related to Klay, all detailed further below these bullet points:

1. Our very own adopted Draft expert, Eric Guilleminault of NBADraft.net, was told by an insider at an AAU tournament in Arizona recently that the Orlando Magic are actually not interested in Klay; Eric (and not his source) thinks they’re probably all-in on Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. I covered this in this video which includes info on Paul George; and this would explain the Denver and Dallas rumors, if Orlando wasn’t high on the list of landing spots for Klay:

2. Sam Amick of The Athletic first reported that the Denver Nuggets are interested (and Klay was spotted at a restaurant in Boulder, see below).

3. Marc Stein of The Stein Line reported that the Dallas Mavericks are also interested. Stein is one of the most reliable NBA reporters in the business and even resides in Dallas. If he reports something about the Mavs, there is a 99% chance it’s true. If you see this former long-time ESPN insider at an arena, you know he is getting some kind of a scoop. Him and the Hall of Famer Marc Spears always signaled that to me, although with Spears, it was more knowing there was some kind of behind-the-scenes feature story on something nuanced and interesting coming up.

4. Late last night I stared at the cap sheets for DEN and DAL for hours and concluded that for either to get Klay, it has to be a sign-and-trade. Maybe I’ll have time to do a video report and theorize the pieces to be moved. It’s no secret that Denver would love to get off Michael Porter’s $35 million contract. I burned the midnight oil trying to figure out if they could sign Klay outright as a free agent, then finally got confirmation this morning from the great Keith Smith of SpoTrac that a non-taxpayer mid-level exception (NTMLE) cannot be combined with available cap space to get Klay’s contract to something respectable. I have not delved into possible sign-and-trade scenarios.

5. And for the Mavs, Maxi Kleber’s $11 million probably needs to be included, but as sign-and-trades go, why would the Warriors agree to just him and — like Mike Dunleavy, Jr. said on the podium on June 24th — NBA GMs tend to want a fair deal (3:18 mark, see the timestamps in the Comments):

   Therefore I would think Dallas would have to include Josh Green, and/or maybe Jaden Hardy. Those are the salaries, along with Kleber’s, that seem to make sense not only from a cap perspective, as sign-and-trades will hard-cap the receiving team at the first apron ($179 million), but also in terms of what that salary figure might be for Klay and is it a respectable number? You figure it’s gotta be around $20 million-ish or at least the high teens.

6. Sign-and-trade scenarios are so highly speculative, so I hesitate to wrack my brain too much, as a final deal could drop at any moment anyways, rendering all that work irrelevant.

Finally, as I was writing this post, LeBron James just opted out and “is considering opening up a pathway for the team to obtain the full midlevel exception for the right targets,” per Chris Haynes of BR/TNT.

Smith, of all people (of course!), adds: “So, we're talking a paycut in the range of $16M+ if James wants to open up the full NTMLE for the Lakers to use this offseason, without any further salary-shedding trades.”

I gotta say, drafting Bronny James and then taking a big pay cut to get better, those are shrewd basketball moves by Rich Paul and Klutch Sports. It’s unfortunate that sects of DubNation and NBA Twitter hate on them, and by extension Draymond Green. It was a genius move for Dray to align himself with the business genius of Bron.

I just wish Klay would’ve done something similar as that, contract-wise, at the get-go. As I reported and confirmed with Smith, Klay at $24 million would’ve allowed the Warriors the ability to pursue a free agent for up to the NTMLE of $12.9 million:

In the video I suggested a free agent acquisition like Kyle Anderson, who made under $10 million last year, or a Derrick Jones, Jr., possibly, to fit in that $12.9 million exception. As it turns out, also as I write this, Royce O’Neale just got a 4-year, $44 million contract to go back to Phoenix.

As Mavs beatwriter Kevin Gray just tweeted, “Jones coming in between $10-$12 million a season would seem correct based on the market, as the O'Neale deal may have just provided that framework.”

Let’s not get too caught up in “coulda/woulda/shoulda” as it pertains to Klay, but you know the crazy thing? That $24 million contract, which in my NTMLE discussion was to match Green’s remaining deal, was nearly the same figure that Lacob offered Klay way back when.

Can you imagine if Klay’s new deal, whomever it ends up being with, is for less than Lacob’s original offer? Wouldn’t Draymond let Klay know — multiple times on the floor and with emphasis — when the Warriors play his new team? 😬

Hopefully Dray has this as an ace up his sleeve in any final meeting (or group chat, let’s say) with Klay. You chuckle, but hey, it’s a real negotiation tactic! 😂

But at the same time, I get that Klay would want to field offers to get a true sense of what he’s worth and 99% of NBA players don’t have to care about the needs of their franchise. That’s why there was no way LeBron was coming to Golden State for a minimum or a taxpayer mid-level, guys! The final point on that is bringing in a Slow-Mo Anderson or DJJ at the NTMLE would likely eat into Klay’s own minutes.

So you can kind of see why there is this impasse. And it’s on multiple levels. Eric G. talked about the fact that Thompson and Stephen Curry overlap each other on offense and both aren’t great defenders, either. Klay can’t help out Steph by guarding Damian Lillard anymore. Sheesh, this is so multi-layered, as I said. Please check out Eric’s sermon 😉 (legendary hip-hop reference) at the 12:30 mark of the PG video embedded above.

And yet, as I mentioned in my latest Klay video report (same link, same PG video embedded above), he deserves this opportunity, even though we all know he just wants to hoop and the obligatory business side sometimes gets in the way. After seeing him so down on the bench in November of 2021…

…he deserves these teams showing him genuine interest and offering him real minutes which the Warriors just don’t have anymore.

I’d also like to thank my closest followers for reminding me of why I do what I do, when they see some potential clickbait about Klay or whatever, feel their heart ache a bit, and hit me up. And I thank my dad for my anal engineer Lt. Commander Data side that helps me really pursue all this like an investigative journalist. Along the way, it’s gotten me blocked by some “fan pages” (inevitably I called them out at some point in the distant past and I try to avoid that negative energy altogether these days) and maybe soured other relationships within DubNation — the hyper-competitiveness and negativity of social media thumb-typing probably has something to do with that, but it’s all water under the bridge from my perspective now, as I’ve learned so much through meditation and the like.

Again, I feel you, Klay. Just hope you’ll be aware that your ego got you to where you are, but maybe, just maybe, it’s getting in the way of your truest happiness through 82 games right now (?) — it comes from within you, not your environment. 🙏

It is my ongoing quest to help DubNation distinguish between information and entertainment — I just need to figure out how to transfer what’s in my brain to our various platforms in the right way, before stuff gets too stale. I still don’t know if these “core dumps” are the right way.

Appreciate you, diehard Dubs fan Kayla Veronica, for example:

LATEST AND GREATEST GORY DETAILS

- Amid a growing belief leaguewide that Thompson's relationship with the Golden State Warriors is irretrievable, strong mutual interest between Thompson and the Dallas Mavericks is expected when free agency opens Sunday evening, league sources tell The Stein Line (with a preference to remain in Western Conference)… DAL had to surrender three future second-round picks in the swap to get the Pistons' assistance, but the trade is expected to create sufficient flexibility for Dallas to extend a multiyear offer to Thompson that can compete with other suitors. (Marc Stein)

- Sam Amick of The Athletic says DEN is interested in Klay: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5599073/2024/06/28/nba-free-agency-paul-george-warriors-klay-thompson-kevin-Durant

A league source said Philadelphia has interest in Thompson. If the Nuggets lose free-agent-to-be Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, who has decided to decline his player option and enter the market, a league source said Denver has pegged Thompson as a possible replacement. Caldwell-Pope, as it were, is believed to be a strong possibility for Orlando. There are a handful of other rival teams also in play for Thompson, depending on his price tag.

- Klay at St. Julien Hotel’s Jill’s Restaurant in Boulder (30 mins from DEN) the night of Friday 6/28, according to the thread: https://x.com/myerslocks/status/1806914222896316505

- “Klay Thompson’s future in Golden State is tenuous at best right now,” per Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN. “There’s not really been much communication with the Warriors. There’s not been an offer yet.” Woj notes that sign/trade scenarios could be in play involving Thompson. https://x.com/knbr/status/1807058543188775403

I’ll leave on this: looks like Eric G. was right about KCP and Orlando, per Amick. And finally Woj, why would GSW offer Klay anything when he hasn’t been offered anything else by anybody yet? That’s not how we roll here in Silicon Valley.

And I still think if Joe and Steve get a final face-to-face meeting with Klay, they’ll snap him out of it.

👍👍💛💙