Klay Thompson: That Night in Oakland

It is antithetical to the spirit of this publication to concede that - at times - we find it harder to root for some than others.

It was certainly true as the Warriors dynasty rose, dragging with it an army of Patagonia vests and RSUs suddenly pledging allegiance to the blue and gold of the Bay.

From beneath the long shadow of the 1973 Knicks championship banner, I watched with disdain like the Grinch staring down at Whoville.

And yet, standing in the middle of this tidal wave of front-running joy was a 6’5” Cindy Lou Who with a perfect stroke and a Stoic’s demeanor.

And in watching him, my heart grew three sizes.

There’s a rare wrinkle in sports fandom - when you find yourself pulling for someone whose brilliance fuels a team you’d otherwise love to see fail.

Klay Thompson is that exception.

Yes, his talent is generational, undeniable. But the real reason everyone loves Klay - and make no mistake, everyone loves Klay - is because there’s no pretense.

He shows up exactly as he is - as who he is. No matter the moment. No matter the stakes.

I have found that this is so much harder than it looks.

If you know what I mean, this issue is for you.

And if you’re feeling bold, send me a note. Tell me how it landed. How you’re making your way.

Just as with Klay, I’m rooting for you - exactly as you are.

In your corner,

Before the injuries, there was the stillness.

While basketball increasingly bent toward spectacle - toward expression, performance, "brand" - Klay Thompson moved through the game in a state of near-perfect equilibrium.

Not so much playing as being played through.

His teammates witnessed it daily - the way he stayed after practice, silently launching jumpers in empty gyms, face betraying nothing of the work happening within.

No music.
No audience.
Just the rhythmic heartbeat of the ball against hardwood, the whisper of the net, the steady cadence of breath.

Golden State had built its dynasty on many pillars, but Thompson provided something uniquely essential: presence without performance.

In a league - and on a team - of carefully curated personas, he offered something accidentally profound: authenticity without announcement, excellence without explanation.

His rare displays of emotion became legendary because they arrived like sudden lightning across clear skies - the championship celebrations, the spontaneous interview after scoring 60 points on 11 dribbles.

Moments when childlike joy broke through the composed exterior. Beneath the placid surface ran currents of intensity, rarely witnessed.

Game 6, 2019 NBA Finals. Oracle Arena’s final night after 47 years. Warriors trailing the series to the Toronto Raptors, 3-2.

With 2:22 remaining in the third quarter, Thompson races ahead on the break and rises toward the rim. Danny Green contests from behind. The contact seems incidental - but the landing changes everything.

His left knee buckles as he crashes to the floor.

For a brief second, his face registers what the body already knows.

The crowd holds its breath.
Teammates look away, not wanting to see what can’t be unseen.
Trainers rush in.

He's helped toward the tunnel, the Warriors’ championship hopes almost assuredly disappearing with him.

Then - the pivot.

Thompson stops. Turns around. Returns to the court.

He’s been told he must shoot his free throws to remain eligible to return. His response is immediate:

"I'll shoot the free throws."

Not a declaration of heroism. A statement of fact.

He walks back unassisted. The crowd erupts.

Two dribbles. One deep breath. Swish.

Ditto the second.

Then he jogs - actually jogs - back on defense before the Warriors commit a foul to stop play.

The Warriors would lose the game, and with it, the Finals.

But those twenty seconds had already secured their place in basketball lore - a moment when the scoreboard became secondary to the human revelation unfolding within the game.

Later, when asked about those free throws, Thompson shrugged.

"I just thought, 'Man, I worked so hard to get here. I'm not leaving those points on the board.'”

A practical accounting of what seemed obvious to him in the moment - as if returning to shoot on a catastrophically injured knee were simply good business.

In the locker room afterward, he kept asking to return.

The medical staff had to hide his shoes.

When told his ACL was completely torn, his response wasn’t disbelief but genuine confusion:

"It doesn't feel like it."

Speaking with Warriors GM Bob Myers, Thompson’s first words weren’t about his own pain or uncertain future.

"I'm sorry, Bob."

A player apologizing for getting hurt.

Months of rehabilitation followed - a full season away from basketball.

Unlike most athletes who document their recoveries in real time, Thompson disappeared from public view.

By November 2020, he was preparing for his comeback.

Then came the cruel symmetry of a second devastating injury - an Achilles rupture during a pickup game.

Another season lost. Another mountain to climb.

"I just felt like the basketball gods were frowning on me," he would later admit. "I had done everything right, worked so hard, and then - boom."

"You appreciate every step when you've had to learn to walk again," he told NBC Sports in 2022.

He found solace in other passions - boating on open water, where the rhythm of waves replaced the rhythm of dribbles.

Reading, not for distraction but for depth.

Meditation, formalizing the mindfulness he had always naturally embodied on court - each breath on his boat now serving the same purpose as those two deliberate dribbles at the free throw line.

These weren’t manufactured interests for social media consumption but genuine curiosities, approached with the same unaffected authenticity he brought to basketball.

"I realized that basketball is what I do, but not who I am," Thompson said.

"I found peace in that."

The player known for his presence without performance now had to bring that same quality to a life temporarily without basketball.

To recognize that the authenticity that defined his game had always existed independent of the game itself.

The transition wasn’t immediate or easy.

There were dark days. Moments of frustration and self-doubt.

When the love for the game was tested like never before.

January 9, 2022.

Nine hundred and forty-one days after Game 6 of the 2019 Finals.

Thompson steps onto the court at Chase Center, the Warriors’ new arena across the Bay from Oracle.

His first basket: a driving layup through contact.

His third: a thunderous dunk that silences any lingering questions about what his body could still do.

"It felt like the first day of school again," Thompson said afterward.

Five months later, despite playing at less than his pre-injury peak, Thompson helped the Warriors win the 2022 NBA Championship.

The player who had missed 941 days was once again a champion.

Not because he had changed.

But because he had remained.

Perhaps his most revealing gesture came in February 2025, when Thompson presented his 2022 championship ring to Dr. Richard Ferkel, the surgeon who had repaired his Achilles tendon.

"Without him, I don't get back to the court," Thompson told SFGate. "He deserves this."

What makes Thompson’s journey so resonant isn’t just the physical triumph of comeback.

It’s the philosophical depth revealed through crisis.

The free throw moment.
The 941 days of rehabilitation.
The championship return.
The gesture to his surgeon.

These form a narrative about more than athletic recovery.

They speak to something essential about presence, resilience, and the relationship between identity and circumstance.

This is the lasting wisdom of Thompson’s 941 days:

That sometimes, our most defining moments aren’t the ones we consciously craft, but the ones that arrive unbidden - revealing a self that was always there, waiting for crisis to make it visible.

And sometimes, the most powerful response to life’s sudden ruptures isn’t reinvention.

It’s recognition.

The quiet comfort of remaining yourself, even when everything around you has changed.

📰 : Klay Thompson and the Game 6 Moment That Rocked Oracle Arena One Last Time (The Ringer)

📰 : We forget how good Klay Thompson was. He can’t. (Washington Post)

Most people think of authenticity as something you have - a quality, a trait.

But Carl Rogers believed it's something we're born with and gradually lose touch with.

A natural state we rediscover when we stop performing.

Rogers called the opposite of authenticity incongruence - the quiet, creeping tension between who you are and who you think you need to be to belong.

You don't consciously choose to perform.

It happens automatically.

Small edits. Tiny recalibrations. Making sure you present yourself just right - so you're liked, accepted, safe.

At first, it feels harmless.

But over time?

It creates a gap between the real you and the curated version of you.

And the bigger that gap gets, the more restless, anxious, and disconnected you feel.

So what's the fix?

Where Rogers shows us what's going wrong, Rick Rubin reveals how to get it back.

His philosophy?

Authenticity isn't something you build.

It's something you uncover.

In music, Rubin teaches that greatness doesn't come from adding more - more instruments, more effects, more layers.

It comes from removing everything that isn't necessary until what remains is unmistakably, undeniably real.

And if that's true for art, it's true for life.

If you feel like you've lost touch with yourself, the answer isn't to construct confidence, add resilience, or force a personality shift.

The answer is subtraction.

Because here's the real secret:

The most powerful people don't "craft" a persona.

They are simply the ones who have removed everything false.

No extra effort. No performance. No pretending.

And once you stop trying to manufacture resilience, confidence, or greatness…

You realize: You were already enough before you started trying so hard.

That's the real skill of authenticity.

Not becoming someone new.

But finally learning to stop interfering with who you already are.

Barbie: For Their New Collection Spotlighting Women’s Sports Stars (Just Women’s Sports)

LeBron James: For Seeming to Exist in a Singularity, Unaffected by Time (NPR)

Russell Westbrook: For This Moment with a Fan Who Traveled 6K Miles from S. Korea (Bleacher Report)

For Shaq. Before turning 53 this week, and before it was the LSU Tigers, Orlando Magic, Los Angeles Lakers, Miami Heat, Phoenix Suns, Cleveland Cavaliers, and Boston Celtics, it was the Cole Cougars in San Antonio, TX.

I love hearing from y’all. Please continue to reach out, and I’ll be sure to share the thoughtful, the funny, the kind, and the thought-provoking.

The Bounce Back grows most meaningfully through word of mouth. If these insights resonated with you, I’d be super grateful if you passed them along to someone on their own climb.