Tag: Mychal Thompson

Mychal Thompson makes a flimsy argument for Caitlin Clark as WNBA MVP

This doesn’t quite make sense.

Look, I don’t agree one bit with Mychal Thompson, the former two-time NBA champion who’s also Klay Thompson’s dad and who’s known to be vocal on X (formerly Twitter).

But here’s his argument for Caitlin Clark as WNBA MVP, one that I don’t agree with at all (what, does A’Ja Wilson suddenly not exist?) and all spelling in his post is [stet]: “Lemmy see if I got this strait…Best Gard in the WNBA…Leeds leeg in points scored/assisted…Has taken the WORST team in the leeg to solid PLAYOFF contender…Leeds leeg in assists…and then there’s this…Game attendance avrage WITH Caitlin?15,000…NO Caitlin? 8,000.Thats MVP 2 ME.”

https://twitter.com/champagnennuts/status/1830791350591332759

Obviously, game attendance isn’t a factor in MVP voting. The assists? It’s amazing what she’s done, and given the Indiana Fever as possible playoff contenders, it’s fair.

But Wilson is leading the league in scoring by nearly five points per contest (!) over Arike Ogunbowale. She’s just about a rebound a game under Angel Reese for the league lead. She leads in blocks per contest and is fourth in steals. She’s fourth in field goal percentage.

And the Aces? They’re second in the West with a 20-12 record. Argument over.

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Dodgers will celebrate Lakers legends with T-shirt giveaway this weekend

The Dodgers will pay tribute to multiple Lakers champions this weekend at Chavez Ravine.

This has been a fairly exciting season for the Los Angeles Dodgers. It has seen the team debut of two-way star Shohei Ohtani, arguably the best player in baseball, and they have been keeping pace with the Philadelphia Phillies and New York Yankees in the race for Major League Baseball’s best record.

The Dodgers have always shown a strong affinity for the Los Angeles Lakers. This weekend, they will be paying tribute to a number of legends who wore the Purple and Gold.

On Saturday, when they face the Tampa Bay Rays, five members of the Showtime Lakers will be throwing out the first pitch. The Dodgers will also be giving away a T-shirt with depictions of the Showtime Lakers wearing Dodgers jerseys that night.

The following afternoon, they will wrap up their three-game series versus the Rays by giving away a T-shirt honoring late Lakers great Kobe Bryant.

Fans planning on going to either game should be aware that either T-shirt will only be given to the first 40,000 fans in attendance.

“They won’t be complacent. You’ve got …

“They won’t be complacent. You’ve got three competitors leading the way in Draymond, Steph and Klay. They’ve got four, but you know they want to get to five, they want to get to six,” Mychal explained. “I can guarantee you they’re probably thinking, ‘Man, if we could only match with Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen, that would be great.’ Now forget about Bill Russell. Nobody’s ever going to get to 11,” the former NBA big man added. “But six is the next standard, and I’m sure the Warriors are thinking, ‘Let’s get to six. Let’s try to match with Jordan.’”

“I thought he was fine last year, you …

“It was always Dr. [Jerry] Buss’ goal …

“It was always Dr. [Jerry] Buss’ goal to pass Boston,” says Laker great Earvin “Magic” Johnson, who led the Lakers to five of those championships. “The Lakers never want the Celtics to win.” “Dr. Buss always would say losing is bad enough but losing to the Celtics was not tolerable,” says Mychal Thompson, who won two titles in LA including one over Boston in the 1987 Finals. “We are all Warriors fans now,” he said. “They have to do us a favor and keep us tied with Boston. We can’t let them get to 18 before us.”

On this date: Mychal Thompson has game of his life in 1988 playoffs

On May 1, 1988, big man Mychal Thompson was unstoppable in a playoff game between the Lakers and the San Antonio Spurs.

These days, Mychal Thompson is perhaps best known as the father of Golden State Warriors star Klay Thompson and the loquacious color commentator for radio broadcasts of Los Angeles Lakers games.

But back in the day, he was a pretty good player himself for the Purple and Gold.

During the 1986-87 season, with legendary center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar starting to significantly show his age, L.A. traded for Thompson to beef up its frontcourt.

It won the NBA championship that year, its fourth in eight seasons, and head coach Pat Riley, looking to establish his squad as the team of the 1980s, guaranteed it would repeat as champs.

As the 1988 NBA Playoffs opened, the Lakers looked a bit vulnerable, and they needed more than the usual great games from Magic Johnson, James Worthy and Byron Scott to fulfill Riley’s promise.

In Game 2 of the first round versus the San Antonio Spurs, Thompson had perhaps his best game as a Laker with 29 points on 12-of-17 shooting and 16 rebounds to help his team to a 130-112 win.

With Thompson spelling a rapidly declining Abdul-Jabbar, while also helping out a young A.C. Green at power forward, the Lakers took out the Spurs in a three-game sweep and went on to claim another world championship.

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Walt Frazier Enterprises was a …

Walt Frazier Enterprises was a landmark. It had an office on Park Avenue. Frazier was its namesake and its face. He owned a third of it. Billy Cunningham, then a 76ers star, owned a third as well. Irwin Weiner, the actual agent in the midst, owned the other portion. Together, they represented some of the league’s top players, from Julius Erving to George McGinnis and George Gervin, at a time when there were few agents even around. “They set the tone for how things are operating now,” Mychal Thompson, one of its clients, said.

And Malone lived at the free-throw …

And Malone lived at the free-throw line. He averaged 8.2 free-throw attempts per game. Only Karl Malone, Wilt Chamberlain and Shaquille O’Neal have attempted more career free throws among NBA players than Malone’s 11,090. “I hated Moses,” said Mychal Thompson, the first pick in the 1978 draft by Portland who also went on to play on multiple Lakers championship teams in the 1980s. But like most of the big men of that generation, there was no preparing to bang for 40 minutes with Malone. “I had sleepless nights when I knew I was playing the Rockets or 76ers,” Thompson said. “I knew I was going to be assigned to him. I knew I was going to be sore the next night. The guy was freaking relentless. You just knew you were in for a long night. I knew I was going to be beaten up and bruised. He didn’t mind the contact. And he was in such great shape. He didn’t play above the rim, but he was in great shape and he had such great anticipation on rebounds. It was like playing against an athletic octopus.

Mychal Thompson says Klay is ‘fully healthy’ and practicing at ‘full speed’ in offseason workouts

Mychal Thompson provided an update for Klay’s recovery, saying the Golden State Warriors shooting guard is practicing at “full speed.”

While a small handful of teams are still busy with the NBA playoffs inside the Orlando Bubble, the Golden State Warriors are already preparing for next season.

After his injury from the 2019 NBA Finals held Klay Thompson out of the entire 2019-20 season, the sharpshooting guard has been working towards his long-awaited return to Steve Kerr’s rotation. In June, the guard was medically cleared to train without restriction on his surgically repaired knee.

During Golden State’s extended offseason, the three-time champion has been working out in Southern California. On Sunday, his father, Mychal Thompson, provided an update on his offseason training. In an interview with Amin Elhassan and Jason Jackson on Sirius XM’s NBA Radio, Thompson said his son is “fully healthy” and practicing at “full speed.”

Via @SiriusXMNBA on Twitter:

He’s doing great, man. He’s playing, going full speed, and is back to being a basketball player fully healthy. So, he’s feeling good. And I’ve been watching him work out, and I’ll tell you one thing, crazy to say, but his shot looks even better, and which should be expected because that’s all you could do for so long is just go out and shoot, shoot, shoot until you are fully healthy, until you get that full clearance, but he is ready to go. If the season were to start at a normal time, he’d be out there with Steph and the boys again…

Steve Kerr has come up and watched him work out and watched him scrimmage. So yeah, they’re back to playing, he’s back to playing and doing all the natural things — moving laterally like he did before the surgery…

Once the Warriors are cleared to host in-market group workouts during the offseason, Thompson will be able to join Steph Curry, Draymond Green and the rest of his Golden State teammates on the practice floor for the first time in months.

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Having Thompson fully healthy in the offseason’s early stages will give him more time to work with Golden State’s new arrivals Andrew Wiggins, Eric Paschall and Marquese Chriss.

Getting their five-time All-Star shooting guard back healthy is a significant box the Golden State Warriors need to check off before making their climb back into the playoff picture in 2021.

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