Klay Thompson might have thought he would be contending for a championship in his first season with the Dallas Mavericks when he joined the team last summer. The Mavericks had just made the NBA Finals and were led by maybe the best guard tandem in the league at the time with Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving.
Fast forward to the current day, and it’s hard to imagine that Thompson’s maiden campaign with the Mavericks could have gone more wayward.
The Mavericks traded their longtime face of the franchise in Doncic partway through the season, and the defending Western Conference champions failed to qualify for the 2025 NBA Playoffs after the team suffered a play-in loss to the Memphis Grizzlies on Friday.
Recently, Thompson was asked if he regrets his decision to depart the Golden State Warriors in free agency, and while he didn’t give a straight answer, he did claim that he’s content with his new team.
“Don’t do this to me,” Thompson said. “Don’t do that to me. Don’t do that. That’s kind of a ridiculous question. I don’t own a time machine, and I don’t believe in going back, looking back. If I did that my whole career, I would not be where I’m at and I wouldn’t have been able to persevere through two really hard injuries.
“So I’m here in Dallas, and I enjoyed my time and I’m looking forward to the future.”
Thompson joined the Mavericks via a sign-and-trade deal after he spent over a decade of his NBA career with the Warriors, who selected him with the No. 11 overall pick in the 2011 NBA Draft.
The 35-year-old enjoyed plenty of success both collectively and individually with the Warriors, as he was named an All-Star every season during a five-season span in Golden State from the 2014-15 campaign through the 2018-19 season.
More importantly, he was key to several Warriors title teams and helped Golden State to four championships. He won his last title as a Warrior when the team beat forward Jayson Tatum and the Boston Celtics in six games in the 2022 NBA Finals.
It’s unfortunate that the Mavericks followed up their Finals appearance by missing the playoffs the very next season, as maybe no team in the league has had a bigger fall from grace in that time frame.
But on the flip side, Dallas could ostensibly be a better team in the 2025-26 campaign so long as it can stay healthy. Arguably the team’s two best players — Irving and big man Anthony Davis — missed significant time for the Mavericks with injuries.
