After five consecutive trips to the NBA Finals, the Golden State Warriors have taken a step back, and even if it’s largely due to injury, people want to fire off their take on the former champs.
Former player turned ESPN NBA analyst Richard Jefferson has never shied away from the opinionated yet, sometimes controversial comment, and on Friday night’s edition of ESPN’s NBA Countdown, Jefferson weighed in on the new-look Warriors.
In a discussion with Jay Williams that centered around Draymond Green, Jefferson eventually revealed that he believes that it’s Thompson, not Curry, that the new look Warriors miss most.
“For him, at this point in time of his career, we’re looking at Klay Thompson here, I think that’s who they miss,” Jefferson said in reference to the 2-10 club.
“We’re talking about ‘Oh, they lost KD and Steph,’ I think, to me, if you just had to isolate one guy, I think with what Klay can do on the offensive end and the defensive end, I think they really—obviously everyone knows that they miss him—but I think they would be better if it was just Klay versus just Steph. Just because at both ends of the floor, the fact that you still have another scorer.”
The commentary begins at the 8:55 mark of the video below.
While the 18-year veteran was praising Thompson’s game, he perhaps took a subtle, passive shot at the other Splash Brother.
Jefferson and Curry have had back-and-forth banter since their time as teammates slowly turned into a rivalry. Jefferson was a member of the Cavaliers team that erased a 3-1 series deficit in the NBA Finals against the Warriors, but before that, he was a part of the Warriors during Thompson’s rookie season.
The two jokingly talked smack about the Cavs-Warriors matchup on Snapchat at Kent Bazemore’s wedding in 2017, and on Jefferson’s podcast, he took issue with Curry’s 2016 Cleveland locker room “champagne” comment.
D’Angelo Russell has been great, but he’s no Stephen Curry. And fortunately for Golden State, they don’t have to choose between either Curry or Thompson or Curry or Russell.