© Ken Blaze-USA TODAY Sports
OAKLAND — Get Steve Kerr talking about Klay Thompson for long enough, and he may give you an unknown anecdote that only adds to the shooting guard’s legend.
On Tuesday night, prior to the Warriors’ tipoff with the visiting Utah Jazz, Kerr was asked to pick his favorite Thompson performance.
“The beauty of Klay is that, and one of his underrated values, is his durability, his availability,” Kerr said. “You ask me my favorite Klay game, I could literally pick from every single game.”
It’s true. Thompson has played in at least 73 of the 82 regular season games in all six complete seasons of his career. He has missed just one game this season.
Kerr praised Thompson’s durability by highlighting his toughness in the 2018 NBA Finals. Thompson, according to Kerr, had “a bruise up and down his quad that you can’t even imagine someone would play.” By all accounts, this is the first time Kerr or anyone else talked about the injury.
You may remember when Cleveland Cavaliers guard J.R. Smith collided with Thompson.
But the Warriors later diagnosed the injury as a lower leg contusion, so it doesn’t sound like the collision with Smith was related to Thompson’s thigh bruise.
The sharpshooter didn’t miss any Finals games as the Warriors swept the Cavs, and any injury scare quickly became an afterthought. Thompson went on to average 16 points and shot 42.9 percent from three-point range in the series.
“That’s one of the best attributes of any player, just being there for the team night in night out,” Kerr said. “He takes great pride in that. So, the combination of great two-way player who is available every single night, and then once in a while he sets an NBA record for points in a quarter or most threes in a game, shoots 50 percent from the field for the whole year, 40 percent from three… what’s not to love?”