I didn’t expect to feel sad about Klay Thompson leaving the Warriors. I’m not a Warriors hater or anything, and I generally cheered for them as they were on the rise, but the Golden State Warriors of the 2010’s are a long way from the list of my favorite teams of all time.
Still, there I was, watching Steph Curry’s Instagram story today like so many of the rest of you, feeling sad for what ended.
The Splash Brothers have their own Wikipedia page, an honor not bestowed on even Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen. It chronicles their parallel rises from gifted births to surprising obscurity to prolific college careers. It shares the backstory on the Warriors moves which led to their 2012–13 breakout. It outlines the various records broken and milestones achieved. It mentions Jordan Poole’s brief (and now hilarious) emergence as a third Splash Brother. It explains the connection to the Bash Brothers, another groundbreaking pair of athletes now etched into the history of what will soon be a professional sports ghost town.
What Wikipedia doesn’t quite capture, though, is how fun Steph Curry and Klay Thompson were in those years. We’re used to three-point shooting now. The revolution is over, and the Splash Brothers won. But even that doesn’t capture how special the partnership was. Because in addition to proving to the basketball world just how valuable the three-point shot was, Curry and Thompson demonstrated what a dynastic duo can look like in the NBA’s millennial and post-millennial era.
Maybe this is overblown, conventional wisdom run off course, but it’s thought that professional sports are less competitive than they used to be. Michael Jordan and LeBron James epitomize the shift, but it’s broader than two people. It’s a generational thing, probably fueled in part by a world where the continuous nature of the spotlight makes it less appealing to be an asshole. Jordan treated basketball like war, and in his generation, he wasn’t alone in that. LeBron treats basketball like a game, and he isn’t alone in that either. What Curry and Thompson did together and did so well was treat basketball like a game while keeping basketball the focus. In a world demanding its athletes be both competitive and cool, the Splash Brothers threaded the needle.
With the Splash Brothers, it never felt like basketball was a vehicle to stardom. With the Splash Brothers, basketball was always the focus. Coolness, by appearance, didn’t seem to be a concern. Why was this the case? Curry has always had a social deftness LeBron would kill to have. He’s always been cool, and he’s never needed to try too hard to be it. Thompson, alternatively, has never seemed to care if he’s cool or not. Thompson has always seemed more focused on having fun. This, of course, is the easiest way to be cool. But it’s harder in practice than in theory.
Maybe it’s through this difference and this similarity that the pair complimented each other so well. Maybe it made it easier for each to know their role in the partnership. Whatever the case, they never seemed to feud. This could always unravel as time goes on—I’m not sure what bloggers wrote about Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen’s personal relationship in 1998—but in the time they were together, it always felt like a partnership, even with Curry the clear 1A and Thompson a clear 1B, 1C, or 1D. Thompson was more than Curry’s sidekick, but the Warriors were Curry’s team. This always seemed ok with Thompson as long as he was wanted. Now that he’s not, it’s over, and he’s off somewhere else to have his fun.
What the Splash Brothers did, at their core, wasn’t unlike what late-stage Tom Brady figured out how to do. They won. They played and behaved with seriousness. They avoided becoming assholes in an age in which assholes get old fast. This is a clinical, bizarrely technical lens through which to view basketball. Tom Brady would get it, but to Klay Thompson, it would probably sound nuts. That’s the point.
Miscellany
- The House v. NCAA settlement that was supposed to create a lasting peace does not cover players from the 2008 NCAA Tournament, or from a number of others in fairly recent history. Relatedly, Mario Chalmers and other former college basketball stars are suing the NCAA and multiple conferences for using their names, images, and likenesses in promotional content. These might indeed prove to be small, one-off concerns, easy for the NCAA and its leagues to settle. But it’s still tenuous, and the House v. NCAA settlement is still far from certain to be finalized.
- The Marlins designated Tim Anderson for assignment, and while he’ll likely bounce around the majors for at least another year, it’s an ignominious occasion for the 31-year-old. He really was a great hitter from 2019 through 2022, and he was on the cusp of being a core face of the game. Now, DFA’d by one of the worst teams in the league. Baseball is fickle and fleeting.
- Utah announced yesterday that defensive coordinator Morgan Scalley is their head coach in waiting, with Kyle Whittingham 64 years old. Whittingham’s an interesting figure—legendary in Salt Lake City, often thrown around in head coaching carousel conversations but seemingly completely committed to the Utes—but this is probably more significant from a recruiting and transfer perspective. What value does continuity hold for prospects? Theoretically, it should matter less than it used to, with it easier for players to jump ship if their coaches get off board, but this announcement makes me wonder.
- Blake Anderson is out at Utah State, placed on administrative leave with intent to fire over an alleged Title IX violation from the spring of 2023. Anderson’s attorney told ESPN that Utah State won’t get away with this, and that Anderson’s supervisor, presumably deputy AD Jerry Bovee (who’s also been fired), was the one at fault. The implication is that this was about reporting a violation, with some failure in reporting then becoming another violation itself. Ugly situation, and one that could theoretically shake up the Mountain West as Aggie players now have the chance to complete some very late transfers.
