Klay Thompson Has A Very Simple Solution For How To Get Out Of His Shooting Slump

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By almost any measure, Klay Thompson has had a brutal start to the season. Through the first six games, he’s converted just nine of his 46 total three-point attempts (19.6 percent), this after shooting a deadly 42.5 percent last year. He finished second in made three-pointers last season behind fellow Splash Brother Steph Curry, and the pair are widely considered the best shooting back-court the NBA has ever seen.

But his recent woes won’t send him searching for any drastic measures to get himself back on track. Instead, he’s going to try to keep it simple and do what he always does in these situations, according Ethan Sherwood Strauss of ESPN.com:

“I just try to watch highlights of the team I’m going to play against,” Thompson said. “So I had a good game against the Pelicans, I’ll watch what I was successful at against them.”

Naturally, the subtext behind any questions regarding his shooting struggles has to do with a certain high-profile addition the team made to the roster this off-season. Thompson went on record at the time that he wouldn’t be “sacrificing sh*t” to accommodate Kevin Durant, but his current predicament begs the question of whether Durant’s arrival has disrupted the previous chemistry.


Thompson, for his part, scoffed at that notion when Sherwood Strauss continued to press him about it:

“Not at all,” Thompson said at Monday’s shootaround when asked if his cold spell had anything to do with Durant. “I struggled last year for the first 20 games and Kevin wasn’t here. So it has nothing to do with Kevin.”

“So last year I struggled, then I went on a tear, so it’s just like any other season,” Thompson said, looking to the future. “Obviously we have different players, but I’m still getting the shots I always got before he was here, so it’s not on Kevin at all.”

It’s entirely possible it’s all being blown way out of proportion. The Warriors are under tremendous scrutiny this season, so any issue will be magnified 10-fold. Still, it’ll be fascinating to watch Thompson’s progress (or continued regression) in the coming weeks as the Warriors continue to try to overcome a relatively-lukewarm start to the season.

(ESPN.com)

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