What is Klay Thompson up to in Santa Cruz? G League coach details first
practice, scrimmage
Warriors star shooting guard will scrimmage, practice with G League
squad but no plans to play him yet
>Golden State Warriors star Klay Thompson is all smiles as he works out
at Kaiser Permanente Arena in Santa Cruz on Monday. (Shmuel Thaler/Santa
Cruz Sentinel)
>Golden State Warriors star Klay Thompson is all smiles as he works out
at Kaiser Permanente Arena in Santa Cruz on Monday. (Shmuel Thaler/Santa
Cruz Sentinel)
By EVAN WEBECK | ewebeck@bayareanewsgroup.com | Bay Area News Group
PUBLISHED: November 30, 2021 at 4:30 a.m. | UPDATED: November 30, 2021
at 10:45 a.m.
https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2021/11/30/what-is-klay-thompson-up-to-in-santa-cruz-g-league-coach-details-first-practice-scrimmage/

LOS ANGELES — While the Warriors took to the skies for a short road
trip, Klay Thompson made the even shorter trek south to Santa Cruz by
land. The avid boat captain gave it some thought but decided against
sailing down the coast to the Warriors’ G League affiliate.

Thompson followed up his first G League scrimmage with a full day of
Santa Cruz Warriors practice Monday and another planned run of
five-on-five Tuesday, while the NBA’s Warriors face the Phoenix Suns in
the first of a highly anticipated pair of games this week with their top
competition in the Western Conference.

With another potential playoff preview looming on Christmas Day, could
Thompson be back by then? It’s right in line with the vague timeline put
forth by Thompson and Warriors’ team doctors. For now, he’s made enough
progress to join Santa Cruz’s practices and scrimmages while the
Warriors are away from home.

Santa Cruz coach Seth Cooper provided an update Monday after practice.

Golden State Warriors star Klay Thompson works out at Kaiser Permanente
Arena in Santa Cruz on Monday as he nears his return to the NBA. (Shmuel
Thaler/Santa Cruz Sentinel)

- The highlights

Living up to reports of recent stages of his rehab, Thompson has looked
like his old self during his first two days in Santa Cruz.

He showed off his signature shot by hitting the first 18 attempts — more
or less — of the first shooting drill he participated in, Cooper said.
His explosiveness was on display during a fastbreak drill, when a
teammate passed to him in the lane in transition and he rose to the rim
for a dunk. And he even gave a glimpse of the future by sharing some
in-sync off-ball movements with a capable teammate.

“Right away, you can see the level that he brings. He was great, jumping
in everything today practice-wise,” Cooper said. “All the drills, all
the defensive drills, he’s really getting after it. … Everything we did
was full 100 percent. There was no holding him back. He was totally live.”

--
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- The work

The rehab is over. Now, it’s about getting into game shape.

For Thompson, that means he’ll spend the next month or so building up
endurance. He also has to get used to the normal pace of a basketball
season again, after two years of solely individual drills.

“They wanted him to go through a full practice today as he builds back,
getting a little bit more on a normal schedule of what he’ll be on,”
Cooper said. “He wanted to jump in and do everything the team did. It’s
building up the stamina, the conditioning and just going through a
regular couple days in a row, like he will hopefully soon.”

The scrimmages featured segments of up to 4 minutes at a time. He’ll be
scrimmaging in full 12-minute quarters when he’s ready to return. Yet,
it was the closest thing to game action Thompson has experienced in
two-plus years.

Santa Cruz brought in referees, a scorer’s table and played with NBA rules.

Golden State Warriors star Klay Thompson takes a breather from practice
as he works out at Kaiser Permanente Arena in Santa Cruz on Monday.
(Shmuel Thaler/Santa Cruz Sentinel)
Golden State coach Steve Kerr got to watch footage of Sunday’s scrimmage.

“Klay looked good. It was a really good day for him,” Kerr said.

Cooper, who was coaching against Thompson in the scrimmage, expanded on
Kerr’s assessment.

“He came out and he made four or five shots right away. And we called a
timeout and told our guys we didn’t think we need a scouting report, but
No. 11 can really shoot,” Cooper said. “You just forget how big he is
and how quickly he gets shots off.”

There are a few plays the Warriors installed over the past two seasons
that Thompson still needs to master. That’s one aspect where the
integration of Golden State and its G League affiliate is helpful: the
Sea Dubs already run the same playbook as Golden State.

“Steve asked for us to just put in a couple of the sets and plays,”
Cooper said. “And the good thing is that we run the exact same things
they do. But just to put in a couple things for him to learn that are
new. So a couple of things the Warriors have run in the past two years
that they weren’t running before.”

On one play, Thompson drove and kicked the ball to Axel Toupane, then
bolted for the corner, where he was set up for an open 3.

“The second that ball was gone, you just really expected it to go in,”
Cooper said. “It’s those types of plays that you see and you can
envision him playing with Draymond and Wiggins and Steph and all those
guys that they have there and you start to get excited. You could feel
that. That’s an NBA player, a high-level NBA player right there.”

- The fit

Thompson is integrating just fine with his temporary G League teammates.

He is, after all, the second Thompson sibling to pass through the arena
in Santa Cruz.

A banner hangs in the rafters that his brother, Mychel, helped earn
during the 2015 season, something Thompson has been sure to point out
“two or three times” since he joined Santa Cruz, Cooper said.

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“The Thompsons have scored a lot of baskets in that building,” Cooper
recalled Thompson telling him prior to being assigned there. “He has
mentioned that maybe this year having a Thompson in the building again
would maybe lead to another championship.”

Off the court, while he didn’t brave the waves of the Pacific to boat
down to Santa Cruz, he is fitting in just fine with the beachside
denizens of the town most famous for its waves and the folks who ride them.

“He’s embraced it, just like he would,” Cooper said. “He’s talked to me
about doing a little bodyboarding at the beach. He said the surfers
don’t like that, but he could go on social media and get a bunch of guys
to go bodyboard with him.”

--
Evan Webeck | Reporter
Evan Webeck covers high-school sports on the field and beyond — and a
little bit of everything else — for the Bay Area News Group. A Pacific
Northwest native and graduate of Arizona State, Evan has previously
worked for The Seattle Times, MLB.com and Sports Illustrated.