It’s probably safe to claim that veteran sharpshooter Klay Thompson’s first season in a Dallas Mavericks uniform hasn’t gone as smoothly as he hoped it would.
Last summer, Thompson joined the Mavericks and surely hoped he’d be the missing piece to the team’s championship puzzle. Dallas was on the heels of an NBA Finals run and led by two of the top guards in the league in Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving.
But the Mavericks, after trading Doncic and suffering numerous injuries, are currently in danger of missing the playoffs entirely, and Thompson’s dad Mychal believes that his son is now stuck in purgatory.
“I told him with AD coming, he still has a chance. Then he got hurt, Gafford and Lively got hurt. Klay is stuck in purgatory now. I think they’re going to lose 10 in a row.”
— Mychal Thompson
(via @ESPNLosAngeles)pic.twitter.com/PPFahFUQyV
— Legion Hoops (@LegionHoops) March 6, 2025
Maybe the younger Thompson’s maiden season with the Mavericks still could be considered a success even with all the losses if he looked like a new and improved player compared to his last season with the Golden State Warriors, but his results in the 2024-25 campaign have been a mixed bag.
He’s scoring just 14.1 points per game across 55 starts with Dallas, which marks his lowest scoring average since he put up 12.5 points per contest as a rookie all the way back in the 2011-12 season. But to his credit, he’s shooting 40.2 percent from deep this season, an improvement over last season.
His last two performances maybe serve as a microcosm of how his season has gone. Against the Sacramento Kings on March 3, he finished with just three points and missed all but one of his four shots from the floor. But a couple days later against the Milwaukee Bucks on March 5, he went off for 28 points and six made 3-pointers.
The Mavericks will try to stop the bleeding and end their current three-game losing streak when they face the Memphis Grizzlies on Friday. Given the woes the Mavs are dealing with, the younger Thompson’s role for the remainder of the season could be very large.
Dallas does currently have the No. 10 in the Western Conference, enough for a play-in bid, but there are no guarantees that the team will maintain that position.
