Klay Thompson played a major role in directly keeping three Larry O'Brien Trophies out of the Cleveland Cavaliers' hands. The player who victimized those LeBron James-led teams has quickly looked like a player far removed from his best days in 2025-26.
In 2015, Thompson helped the baby version of the Golden State Warriors dynasty take down an undermanned Cavaliers team in the NBA Finals. A herculean effort by LeBron, who was without his co-stars, went absolutely wasted.
In 2017, after the Cavaliers got revenge in 2016, Thompson shot a red-hot 42.5 percent from beyond the arc when the Warriors won the NBA Finals in a comfortable five-game gentleman's sweep. Having Klay as the third scoring option behind Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant made that team one of the most unfair in NBA history.
In 2018, in the final playoff series before James left Cleveland to join the Los Angeles Lakers, Thompson shot an even hotter 42.9 percent on 7.0 3-point attempts per game. The Warriors swept the Cavaliers to bring the second LeBron era to a disappointing end in Ohio.
Fast-forward to this season, Thompson is no longer the terrifying marksman from deep that he used to be. Klay is struggling mightily on an equally disappointing Dallas Mavericks team.
Klay Thompson's dreadful decline is impossible to ignore in Dallas
There was a time when Thompson was one of the most feared shooters in the league. The Cavaliers, as noted above, got a firsthand taste at what trying to contain Klay felt like among the Warriors superteams that left very little room to give him the kind of defensive attention that was warranted.
When Thompson left Golden State in free agency, one would imagine the goal was to have Luka Doncic create fantastic openings for him on the perimeter in Dallas. Doncic has long been one of the best in the NBA at creating the type of looks that shooters dream of.
Nico Harrison then traded Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers, leaving Thompson without an offensive engine to guide the way for him. The results since have been rough for one of the greatest 3-point snipers the game has ever seen.
2025-26 has featured the worst of it. Thompson is easily shooting the worst field goal percentage and 3-point percentage of his career. The Mavericks have been one of the most brutal offenses to watch in the NBA amid those struggles.
Dallas still owes Thompson another year on his current deal. The Mavericks are paying Klay $16.7 million this season, and that number will climb to around $17.5 million in 2026-27.
Perhaps a change of scenery could do him some good with reviving his production in the final stages of his career. However, at his present contract figure, and the current CBA, it is tough to imagine other teams calling the Mavericks with blind optimism of gambling on fixing his output.