Klay Thompson didn’t care about his legacy when he left the Warriors on Monday, signing a three-year, $50 million deal with the Dallas Mavericks via a forced sign-and-trade.

So why should we spend this strange, end-of-an-era moment waxing poetic about the past and all the good times Thompson provided in the Bay?

Save that stuff for the jersey retirement ceremony. No, I, like Thompson, will take this moment to look into the future.

Though I imagine the four-time champion took one last look back at the flaming wreckage he helped create in San Francisco.

It wasn’t that long ago when the “lightyears ahead” Warriors wanted to be the next iteration of Spurs — good for two-plus decades. To do that, they’d have “two timelines” that would allow them to win now and win later.

That plan never panned out.

And now they’re left with no timelines.

No matter what you thought about Thompson’s efficacy last season, the Warriors letting him walk out the door for only a traded player exception (worth roughly $16 million) and two second-round draft picks is roster malpractice.

Mike Dunleavy Jr. was hired as the Warriors’ general manager on June 16, 2023. That was nearly a year to the day the Warriors won the 2022 NBA title.

Dunleavy inherited some problems, no doubt, but in the 382 days since he took over, he turned Thompson, Jordan Poole and a first-round pick into nothing more than a steaming pile of funny money.

...continued

©2024 MediaNews Group, Inc. Visit at mercurynews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.